Cloud Technology, OSS & the Growth of Marketplaces: An Interview with HubSpot

What an exciting time it is for the open source software community! 

Cloud technology is evolving faster than we can read about it. Marketplaces are now part of our common vernacular.  The ever changing world that we live in and these advancements in technology are providing the open source software community with infinite opportunities to showcase creativity to the world.

I have highlighted three of the more recognizable, and recently launched marketplaces, that speak to this opportunistic time for open source software contributors and users.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace

On April 19th, Amazon announced the launch of their Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace.  The announcement was heralded by many in the cloud technology and open source software arenas, as a giant step for "cloud-kind."  ZDNet, an extremely popular tech-blog, referenced the recent AWS Marketplace launch in an article titled, "Amazon Launches AWS Marketplace as One-Stop Cloud Shop."  Hitting the nail on the head with that reference, the marketplace provides a unique opportunity where customers can "check-out" right from the AWS Marketplace platform with pre-configured stacks and software as well as a variety of services, right in their own personal shopping cart.  The marketplace also integrates with the AWS cloud, which allows for purchase and deployment of your technology without ever leaving the platform.

Salesforce.com AppExchange

Another pioneer in the growth of marketplaces, SalesForce.com, announced the launch of their marketplace, AppExchange, last November, and then almost immediately announced that their AppExchange had gone mobile.  The mobile announcement provided Salesforce.com users with a single location to enhance their experience by incorporating the availability of mobile apps to eliminate most plausible obstacles to accessing their data.

The AppExchange provides partners with the opportunity to develop apps with the "social, mobile, open and trusted capabilities" of Force.com, Salesforce.com’s social enterprise platform.  Salesforce.com's AppExchange provides users with easy mobile access to critical data and contributors with the opportunity to distribute apps to over one million users on AppExchange. This in turn fosters creativity and forward thinking by providing developers with an opportunity to decrease the time spent on building customized apps for their company's needs.

The AppExchange marketplace offers several free open source applications such as the HTML5 Contact Viewer and Salesforce Viewer for iPad.

With so much discussion around marketplaces and the value they're providing to the open source community, I thought it would make sense to hear first hand from one that just celebrated its first birthday!

HubSpot App Marketplace

HubSpot, a Cambridge, Massachusetts based marketing software company, launched their own HubSpot App Marketplace in April of 2011.  The marketplace currently has 54 apps available and serves over 6500 customers.  After being founded in 2006 by two former MIT students, (Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah) and receiving over $65 million in funding from sources like Google Ventures and Salesforce.com over the last 5+ years, HubSpot has become arguably the leading SaaS marketing solution available at this time.

Arjun Moorthy, Vice President Business Development and Partner Products at HubSpot, and closely involved in the success of the HubSpot App Marketplace, was kind enough to spend some time sharing his thoughts on marketplaces, success, open source software, and beyond.

Please feel free to add your own answers in the comments section below!

Q:  What do you think has been the biggest software related factor contributing to the growth and success of your marketplace?

A:  Growth has come largely from a very low barrier to develop apps on the platform and also provides customers an easy way to install and use those apps.

Q:  With the announcement of Amazon AWS Marketplace and marketplaces popping up with great frequency, what do you think has been the biggest reason for this expansion?

A:  The iPhone has made the metaphor for app purchases become mainstream.  It no longer seems technical but actually consumer-friendly.  So now other software vendors have followed suit and are doing their own app marketplaces.

Q:  In your mind, what makes for a successful marketplace?

A:
1.Easy to create apps
2.Easy to adopt and use apps (one-click install, integrated billing)
3.Clear support
4.High quality apps to seed the market
5.Quality controls to maintain sanity of marketplace

Q:  Can you speculate as to where you see marketplaces evolving to?

A:  In the business world, marketplaces may coalesce around verticals and/or functional lines.  So, marketers will have a marketplace for their needs, finance professionals may have theirs, people who work in healthcare may have theirs etc.

Q:  In your opinion, what has the evolution of marketplaces done for open source software?

A:  Many marketplaces (iOS App Store, Google Play, Facebook Application Directory) thrive because of the perception that a single developer or small team can quickly develop an app that has immediate access to a high-interest user base.  That quick development relies almost completely on open source development frameworks, tools and technologies to come together.

Q: How do you think open source software has contributed to the growth and evolution of marketplaces?

A:  The impact of the large availability of high quality tools for development can't be overstated.  The total cost of development to put together an "app" is in most cases a trivial amount beyond the time of those involved.

Arjun provided some great insight and details that appear to highlight the similar common denominators existing in each of these three successful marketplaces.  There seems to be one common implied value that these successful marketplaces offer to us: they make our lives easier.  Somehow, someway, to whichever audience they have chosen to serve, the ease of use, the low barrier to entry, or the tasks they simplify, it all makes our lives easier and to me, seems to be the fundamental formula of a successful marketplace.

How would you answer these same questions?

OpenLogic is very proud to announce that we were included in the launch of the Amazon AWS Marketplace.  You can view all of our open source software products and solutions here, and be sure to check out our fully flexible PaaS solution, CloudSwing, to deploy your apps to the cloud in minutes and also choose a support option that fits your open source software needs.



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