Open source - and an open mind

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 14 February 2008 19:31

Opinion and Analysis

When Con Zymaris started a little company offering free software services 17 years ago - when the concept of open source did not exist -  it is unlikely that he thought he would be around in 2008, doing the same business.
But then few technology companies look that far ahead.

At that time, drawing inspiration from many others, he and David Keegel got going in a little lounge room. Seventeen years later, both of them are still around, Zymaris playing the chief executive's role and Keegel, now a veritable storehouse of Unix knowledge, continuing to hack away.

The business, CyberSource , has achieved several firsts - among them, being the first to offer support for, or training in, Linux and open source in Australia.

Along the way a number of competent techies have been added to the rolls and the company can now boast of having a set of diverse and competent skillsets under one roof. That roof is now in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, just the latest move since 1991.

There are hundreds of start-ups that look to work furiously for a few years and then get acquired by some bigger company; Zymaris has never belonged to that school of thought.

Says he: "You can't make billions doing this kind of business. That's something I've always known. But you can make decent money - and that suffices. We know that we're providing good software and good services. That last bit matters."