In the world of emerging software technology, it can sometimes seem like there’s nothing new under the sun. Kaltura, who claims to be the first the first open source online video platform, recently released Kaltura Community Edition 2.0 that supports a full set of online-video mastering tools, widgets, plugins, and applications meant to be run behind the publisher’s firewall. To find out what role open source plays in Kaltura’s business strategy and what challenges the team encountered along the way, I caught up with its President and Co-Founder, Dr. Michal Tsur.

According to Tsur, making open source an integral part of Kaltura’s business strategy brings several benefits to the table. ” Open source allows us to build an ecosystem of innovation around our platform and business. We can build on and incorporate existing projects, and also include add-ons developed by others to our platform.

“Open source has allowed us to implement a horizontal strategy. Rather than focusing our platform solutions on a particular vertical (e.g. media and entertainment, education, enterprise, government), our openness allowed us and our partners, to easily adapt our core platform services to all of these verticals. This way, we provide solutions to Media companies, universities enterprises and government.”

Kaltura had its work cut out for them beyond just creating a good video platform. “The main challenge is that of building a profitable company around free and open software, as well as building a true strong and involved developer community, ” says Tsur. The company is meeting those challenges head on by “building an ecosystem of network services on top of our free software that has significant distribution [and] adopting a dual licensing strategy, which allows us to offer a commercial license to our software, with full maintenance and support.” The company maintains a strong user community on its Web site and also offers a Software-as-a-Service (Saas) option for customers who prefer not to self-host.

In keeping with its dedication to use open source software, Wikipedia currently uses Kaltura’s technology to power its video needs. Universities and government agencies are choosing it as a cost-effective way to produce and distribute video in-house. Whether businesses to use Kaltura’s products due to its open source licensing or because it’s a less expensive alternative to commercial video platforms, the message is clear. An open source business strategy is worth considering when you’re developing products and services for mass appeal.

. Read the rest at Intel.com.