“WhiteSource helps engineering, security, DevOps, and compliance officers to effortlessly secure and manage the use of open source components”: WhiteSource Software

Open source software (OSS) is crowd-sourced. As a result it has benefits-cost, flexibility, freedom, security, and accountability that are unsurpassed by propriety software solutions. Moreover, OSS has long-term viability and is always on the cutting-edge of technology. It is created and supported by a worldwide community of organizations and individual developers, many of whom also live by open source values like collaboration and volunteerism.

Application development has undergone a revolution in recent years as organizations embrace open source software, in some cases making up to 80 percent of the code base. These practices not only reduce cost and accelerate delivery times, but also introduce management challenges and security vulnerabilities. Some of the most publicized security breaches of recent years, such as the Heartbleed bug, were introduced through the deployment of vulnerable open source components.

Founded by three serial entrepreneurs, Ron Rymon, Azi Cohen and Rami Sass, WhiteSource grew revenues 300 percent  year-over-year for the last three years by tapping the need to better track and secure open source assets. The strong offering has also been recognized by Forrester, who recently ranked WhiteSource as a “strong performer” among all Software Composition Analysis (SCA) offerings in its 2017 Wave report. 

WhiteSource fully automates all open source management needs: open source components detection, security vulnerabilities and new version alerts along with license risk and compliance analysis and policy enforcement. 

Blaze a trail

Back in 2011, the founders of WhiteSource were inches away from selling their company, Eurekify, to CA Technologies. All they had to do is produce code components, inventory report, as part of due diligence process. At the time, they found themselves creating a manually-­tracked report. It got rejected. Then, they resorted to code-­scanning, which they had tried to avoid because it’s so expensive and time-­consuming. Having to do that, now they had to deal with the post-­scan report, ruling out many false positives and correcting errors. For the founders of WhiteSource it was a nightmare that lasted several weeks. CA Technologies indeed acquired Eurekify, in 2008, but, the due diligence process had certainly been a bumpy road. 

WhiteSource founders decided then that their next entrepreneurial mission would be to save other companies from this fate by designing a solution to automate all tasks surrounding the use of open source components: a solution built by a software development team, for software development teams. 

Break new ground

The first product of WhiteSource was launched during 2013, after 2 years of extensive research and development. Initial sales were random as the product was not mature enough. Open source continuous management is much more challenging that it may seem at first.

The first project was a disaster. Avery well-known customer (that is still a loyal customer) asked for an implementation of features that proved to be insufficient, maturity wise. Fortunate enough, they had and still find value in WhiteSource product, but the beginning was a bumpy one. 

Rationale behind company’s expansion

Developers today are using much more open source than before. A recent GitHub survey found that virtually all (94%) of those who were employed used open source at least occasionally in their professional work (81% used it frequently), and 65% of those who contributed back did so as part of their work duties. 

WhiteSource product has matured over the years to address various open source risks that organizations are facing, whether these are security, licensing or quality risks. WhiteSource product relies on the largest in the industry database and fastest and most accurate in the industry crawlers - thus serving its customers in the best possible way. 

Tussles encountered

As an innovative startup, that is one step ahead of the market, it has always been tough to address needs and pains that are not recognized by customers. The early years and actually still today to some extent, required WhiteSource people to educate the market on one hand and to mature the product to fit current and future e-visionary needs on the other hand. 

Factors for success 

Innovative and differentiated product - Recognized now as the strongest offering in the market, by analysts (Forrester 2017 Software Composition Analysis Wave Report), customers and partners. 

A great team - that is dedicated, day in and day-out to the success of the company. 

Growing market presence - acknowledged by hundreds of customers, smaller and enterprise sized, such as TEMENOS, Nokia, NCR, MuleSoft, Gett, etc. 

raison d’être 

Product popularity: The explosion in open source adoption across the enterprise has thus driven the need for a continuous and automatic open source management solution. In addition to that, the maturity of WhiteSource product is a strong enabler of the fast growth. 

Consistence growth as an organization: WhiteSource grew revenues 300 percent year-over-year for the last three years by tapping the need to better track and secure open source assets.  Market demand is one important reason. In addition to that, round B funding, that has Microsoft Venture as one of the investors, are both important acceleration growth factors. 

Contribution to global IT platforms

WhiteSource is a major advocate of the open source community. Managing open source in a continuous manner, WhiteSource believes that the community has proved itself as appreciation-worthy and as trustworthy. It is WhiteSource duty to manage the open source code that is out there and that the customers uses, nurturing more and more open source creation, usage and maintenance. 

Embrace the leading light: Rami Sass, CEO and co-Founder 

Rami is an experienced entrepreneur and executive with vast experience in defining innovative products, leading technology groups and growing companies from seed level to business maturity. Before founding WhiteSource, Rami founded Testology and beforehand, led development efforts at both CA and at Eurekify (Acquired by CA). Rami holds an MsC and a BA in Computer Science. 

“WhiteSource guarantees the continuity and integrity of open source management, and reduces respective risks.”