In this webinar, industry experts will break down the first steps to adopting open-source solutions. They’ll provide actionable strategies for success and help you avoid common pitfalls. Whether you’re just beginning the open source journey or refining your approach, this session will guide you toward a more agile and future-ready technology stack.
Vendor lock-in is a costly challenge for enterprises. Proprietary platforms promise efficiency but often lead to rising costs, reduced flexibility, and unnecessary complexity. Many organizations face steep licensing fees, feature bloat, and hiring challenges due to vendor-specific skill requirements.
In a recent webinar, Liatrio’s experts explored how enterprises can take control of their digital value by transitioning to open-source platforms, cutting costs, and improving software delivery agility.
Many enterprises invest in proprietary platforms expecting stability, only to find themselves locked into systems that increase costs and slow innovation. Some companies face 10x licensing fee hikes, while others struggle with rigid architectures that don’t align with their needs.
Beyond financial strain, vendor lock-in creates hiring challenges. Proprietary platforms require specialized skills, shrinking the talent pool and making it harder to scale engineering teams.
Liatrio has helped enterprises transition from vendor-controlled platforms to open-source alternatives, delivering major cost savings. One organization cut platform spending from $17 million annually to $4.7 million, achieving a 263% ROI while maintaining full control over its infrastructure.
True digital value comes from owning your platform, not outsourcing control to vendors. Companies that take ownership gain:
Bjorn Edwin, Strategic Partner at Liatrio, put it simply:
"If you can’t control where and how your platform runs, you can’t fully control what you build for customers."
With mature open-source technologies, enterprises can replace proprietary platforms with solutions that offer greater control, scalability, and cost efficiency. Open-source platforms enable organizations to:
A phased adoption approach often works best. Many organizations start with a pilot team to test open-source solutions before expanding across the business.
Shifting away from proprietary platforms isn’t just about reducing costs, it’s a strategic decision for long-term scalability and innovation. Organizations that own their platform architecture can adapt, optimize, and control their software delivery without vendor-imposed restrictions.
Are proprietary platforms still worth it?
For many organizations, the answer is clear: No. Open-source platforms provide the freedom to scale, reinvest in innovation, and shape technology strategy without external constraints.
If your organization is ready to break free from vendor lock-in, Liatrio has the expertise to help. Contact us today to explore how open-source platforms can transform your software delivery and digital strategy.
Hey, my name is Rich Monbriand, and I'm Liatrio's Chief Revenue Officer. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to discuss vendor lock-in alternatives. Joining me are two of our firm's top experts, Bjorn and Oliver. Gentlemen, would you mind introducing yourselves? Bjorn, you go first. Hi, everybody. I'm Bjorn Edwin, a strategic partner at Liatrio, leading our Dojo enablement practice. Super excited to be here and share our thoughts and opinions unfiltered. Oliver? Hey, folks. I'm Oliver Eikenberry, a principal architect at Liatrio and the product owner for our platform engineering service offering. Excited to talk about what we’ve got to offer around this. I’ll pass it back to you, Rich. Great, thanks, gentlemen. So, you might be wondering who Liatrio is and what this discussion is really about. We’re an engineering-led consulting services firm focused on improving end-to-end software delivery—making it faster, safer, and more effective so companies can create digital value and deliver customer outcomes efficiently. We've been in business for over 11 years, are founder-led and founder-funded, and our real focus is on digital efficiency and effectiveness—what we call DVE. We’ve enabled thousands of engineers and consider ourselves more like Yoda than Luke Skywalker. Most of our work has been concentrated in regulated industries like finance, retail, and aerospace, though we work across industries. We partner with major open-source projects like Backstage, GitHub, and Honeycomb—standing side by side with the leaders driving these technologies forward. Our goal is to help enterprises take control of their digital value—delivering software at scale, faster, safer, and forever. Bjorn, what do we mean by digital value? Digital value is a tough thing to articulate, right? Physical value is easier—you can touch it and see it. But in the world of software delivery, digital value is a combination of software products and services that provide actual value to the customer. At its core, digital value starts with code. Code is where scalable digital value is created. It’s how organizations generate long-term ROI. Gotcha. That’s a great point. So, as we move forward, we want to emphasize that organizations should own their digital destiny. We don’t believe enterprises should outsource control of their digital value to proprietary vendors. Today, we’re going to talk about how to create digital value, how to manufacture it internally, and how to measure it—so it’s not just another buzzword. This bottom-left graphic is from our T2 framework, which benchmarks digital value in organizations. I won’t go into it now, but we’ll cover it in detail in an upcoming webinar. But today, we’re here to talk about vendor lock-in—how to break free and what success looks like. Before I turn it over to the real experts, Oliver and Bjorn, here’s what we believe: You need a foundational platform architecture. You need an internal developer platform (IDP) to accelerate delivery. You need a pilot team to drive adoption from both the bottom up and top down. You need a model that enables you to go fast forever. So, here’s the big question: Do proprietary platforms and licensing make sense anymore? Oliver, what do you think? I don’t think they make sense anymore. They’re too expensive, hard to maintain, and don’t always provide the features you actually need. And often, they come with bloat—features you don’t need but still have to pay for. The open-source ecosystem has grown to the point where proprietary platforms aren’t the best option anymore. Right. If we move to the next slide, we highlight the “cost of control” problem. Excessive licensing costs—we’ve seen customers hit with 10x price increases from vendors. Feature bloat—vendors pack in extra functionality for one customer that everyone else is forced to pay for. Talent shortages—engineering talent is already hard to find, and when platforms require vendor-specific skills, it makes hiring and retention even harder. Bjorn, what’s our perspective on taking control and delivering cost savings? If you own your digital value end to end, you have full control. It’s passion-driven. You can build the best products and services for your customers without vendor-imposed limitations. Platform ownership is crucial because it’s the backbone of how enterprises deliver software. If you can’t control where and how your platform runs, you can’t fully control what you build for customers. Exactly. So, what’s the alternative? It’s open-source platforms. It’s owning, scaling, and evolving your architecture with the right skills and tools to support it. It’s about controlling your end-to-end software lifecycle—from development to deployment and maintenance. Before we get into the details of how to break free, let’s talk about financial impact. We’ve helped enterprises transition from proprietary platforms to open-source alternatives and saved them millions of dollars. Here’s a real-world example: A company was spending $17M annually on licensing, vendor integration services, internal support costs, and external vendor support. By transitioning to an open-source platform, we delivered the same outcomes for $4.7M—achieving $12.3M in savings and a 263% ROI. Bjorn, do proprietary platforms and licensing make sense anymore? Absolutely not. Open-source platforms provide more flexibility, lower costs, and greater innovation potential. That’s why we believe proprietary platforms and licensing no longer make sense. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. As a takeaway, we have two resources available: A guide on breaking free from vendor lock-in. Our enterprise digital transformation playbook. Oliver and Bjorn, are you both okay with folks reaching out with questions? Absolutely. Of course, would love to connect. Great! Our QR code is on the screen—reach out anytime. Thanks again, and have a great day!