[echelon]

This space is becoming so full of open source offerings, I wonder if or how long the enterprise solutions can stay afloat.

Is Github making the kind of money they aimed to when they raised all of that VC money? What about Gitlab and Atlassian?

I realize that Github and the like have distinguishing features, such as issue trackers, but I can't imagine open source will lag far behind forever.

[kondro]

You're forgetting one of the two major features of SaaS repos (and software in general):

1. Someone else hosting, securing & backing up all your repos.

2. Someone you pay to blame when there are issues and hopefully with the incentive to fix quickly.

[syshum]

You're forgetting one of the two major disadvantages of SaaS repos (and software in general):

1. Someone else is hosting, securing & backing up all your repos.

2. You are at the mercy of someone else when there are issues to fix quickly.

[TeMPOraL]

Right. And a lot of people, taking a look at those advantages and disadvantages, determine that SaaS repos make sesnse for them.

[kossae]

Exactly. I had, at one point, run through all of the latest open source offerings in this space. Right after I got everything up and running, the initial whisper of maintenance came back and I purchased the entry level GitHub subscription. There are other aspects which help these commercial offerings as well, such as brand affinity and switching costs. This usually leads to more newer developers using the same platform as their colleagues, thus prolonging the aforementioned brand affinity.

[echelon]

While I agree with your second assertion, I would think that most companies would prefer to have on-premises hosting for their intellectual property. Github and Atlassian offer this.

[mikekchar]

My impression is that many large organisations would prefer that, but most small organisations would prefer to outsource these kinds of things if possible. From a perspective of how much money you will make, I think focusing on the small organisations will be better. The economies of scale just don't kick in until you have a couple hundred employees (or more!). Especially from the standpoint of security, most small organisations simply can't hire the staff they need (couldn't afford them even if they could find them). So there is a solid market need there. On the other side, large organisations have the skills they need to roll their own if they choose, so your business plan has to rely on walking that line of offering software/services more cheaply than these big organisations can do for themselves. Personally, I think that long term this will be a losing battle. Although Github has a strategy for large businesses, I think they are better positioned to service small businesses. For this reason, I much more bullish on Github than I am Atlassian (which seems to tie their horse to enterprise at every turn).