Attention CEO’s: You Are In The Software Business. Now What?

Companies will spend $1.4 trillion this year on global R&D to design and build their core products. They don’t have the time or dollars to build the software from scratch that runs in those products. So, they’re turning to Linux and open development. Once upon a time just an operating system for servers, mobile devices and supercomputers, Linux is giving companies $10B in R&D that they can pull from and run with to build everything from cars to custom devices, and much more.

Companies finding themselves in the software business can learn a lot from long-time Linux users and sponsors HP, IBM, Intel, Google, and Qualcomm, among others. These companies already spend billions on R&D, according to USA Today and IC Insights: Intel alone will spend $8.4 billion dollars on R&D. Google a whopping $5.2 billion. HP, IBM and Qualcomm will spend $3.2 billion, $6.3 billion and $2 billion respectively.  This is a huge sum of money. But with Linux and open development, they maximize those billions of dollars on product innovation and rely on the power or collaboration to build the software that runs their products.