You are spot on. Strategic flexibility is a core concern for companies and I was also surprised about multi-cloud being important to people - but it is. Just about every tenured tech executive knows what it feels like to back a looser. The software you bought didn’t perform as advertised, the software company went out of business suddenly, the company got acquired and the acquiring company ruined the product, or the implementer you hired couldn’t get that job done causing a major headache. These experiences create a desire to architect easy switching into every major purchasing decision. Software buyers want prenups. They want flexibility and to retain control and ownership on key pieces of the tech stack - which open source allows. Which does create an issue for SaaS companies and I also see consolidation coming, and hopefully some simplification as well. But that might be a bit to optimistic.
You are spot on. Strategic flexibility is a core concern for companies and I was also surprised about multi-cloud being important to people - but it is. Just about every tenured tech executive knows what it feels like to back a looser. The software you bought didn’t perform as advertised, the software company went out of business suddenly, the company got acquired and the acquiring company ruined the product, or the implementer you hired couldn’t get that job done causing a major headache. These experiences create a desire to architect easy switching into every major purchasing decision. Software buyers want prenups. They want flexibility and to retain control and ownership on key pieces of the tech stack - which open source allows. Which does create an issue for SaaS companies and I also see consolidation coming, and hopefully some simplification as well. But that might be a bit to optimistic.