Blogger Don Dodge (on The Next Big Thing)cites a statistic provided by David Skok, a venture capitalist with Matrix Partners. On average about three percent of all open source software users pay for a support contract, and most of them are business users, as you would guess.
Since the three percent paying for maintenance, support, training, and consulting will spread their buying across the entire ecosystem of providers, it is obvious that high volume adoption is needed to support many such companies. In the mass market, it is a surer route to sell hardware or software add-ons.
The conversion or "upsell" rate would strike many in the direct mail business as "par for the course. Conversion rates for targeted mass mailings, even when one has the right audience, the right product and the right timing, tend to hover in the three percent range.
