Open-source technology provider WSO2 is committing itself to solving open-source challenges in 2019. The company revealed its plans to expand open-source communities this year as well as support open-source businesses. The news comes as many other open-source businesses are turning to stricter licenses to tackle open-source business model challenges.

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While other open-source businesses are turning to stricter licenses to address OSS business model challenges, the WSO2 says it experienced a successful year last year. The open-source company, who has maintained an Apache open-source licensing model since 2005, reported a $37M Annualized Recurring Revenue and an expected 51 percent growth year-over-year. In addition, the company has added more than 100 new subscription customers, has customers in 65 different countries, and experienced a milestone with more than 50 percent of its product sales organization outside North America.

“Last year, WSO2 was the 8th largest pure open source software company. Given our growth rate, WSO2 is now the 6th largest open source company and we anticipate growing into the 5th over the next year,” Tyler Jewell, CEO of WSO2, wrote in a post.

WSO2 wants to continue to work off that momentum with several plans for the upcoming year. Plans include:

  • New open-source projects: The company already has community-driven efforts underway for open-source projects such as Cellery, Siddhi, a micro ESB and a micro identity server. Public announcements will be made as the efforts are ready for enterprise adoption, Jewell explained.
  • Depper investments in API management, IAM, and ESB: The company plans to expand engineering and support efforts as well as double its capacity this year
  • Open WSO2 hidden IP: Jewell announced plans to open-source its hidden IP, which currently includes its cloud operating IP, certain configurations, and internal systems.
  • Open more company practices: WSo2 has plans to expand its partner network and help outsiders participate in the company’s development, delivery and sales, Jewell explained. “We expect to grant 1000 certifications throughout 2019 and double the number of outside contributors to WSO2 projects and contributions made by WSO2 to external open source projects,” he said.
  • Create open-source companies: WSO2 wants to give developers easier access to open-source projects as well as help them understand how they can run their own projects.

“In 2018, most of the changes that were made to the business were driven by territory expansion, globalizing our sales organization, expanding our field quality initiatives, and revamping our partner programs to capitalize on the dramatic increase in demand that we have seen in emerging markets,” Jewell wrote. “In 2019, we will accelerate these initiatives while introducing a significant evolution of our product and open source initiatives.”