Liautaud, one of Europe's most renowned tech executives, is betting big on open-source software. His venture capital firm is backing Talend, which bills itself as a low-cost alternative to integration software from the likes of Informatica (INFA).

Unlike traditional commercial products, open-source software is developed cooperatively and is freely available for anyone to use, modify and pass along. Companies make money by selling services and commercial add-ons.

The model represents a tectonic shift for the business software market — and executives such as Liautaud in particular.

After work as a marketing manager for Oracle (ORCL) in France, Liautaud founded Business Objects in 1990. His company pioneered the field of business intelligence, or BI, software, which crunches corporate data to help executives gauge how well their company is performing.

In 1994, Business Objects became Europe's first software company to trade on the Nasdaq. SAP (SAP) bought Business Objects for $6.8 billion in 2008.

Soon afterward, Liautaud joined London-based Balderton Capital, which manages $1.9 billion in investments. As a partner, he has worked with a variety of startups. Liautaud recently discussed his career and the state of the software industry with IBD.

IBD: What's your focus at Balderton Capital?

Liautaud: Right now I'm spending most of my time on our software investment portfolio. I'm also looking at some consumer Internet stuff.

As for our companies, I inherited ScanSafe when I joined Balderton. That sold to Cisco (CSCO), so it was very successful. Another one is Nlyte Software, which does data center optimization. That company is very interesting because data centers consume a lot of energy.

IBD: What about Talend? What's so compelling to you about open-source software?

Liautaud: Open source is becoming more prevalent in the industry as a cost-effective way to develop and sell software. Talend is a big promoter of this approach.

Data integration has become key due to the growing number of data silos in companies. There's a lot of data moving around now, so that need for integration becomes even more important. Data integration is not apparent to the end users. They only see the applications that are enabled by Talend, but they don't notice Talend itself.

Now Talend is replacing the incumbents (integration software makers) such as Informatica, because Talend provides similar or better functionality at a fraction of the cost.

Source: Investor's Business Daily