Open Source Survey Finds Optimism, Interoperability
In what's described as "the first annual survey of its membership and other open source software and services companies," Open Solutions Alliance officials say they found "much optimism despite a murky economy," with 83 percent of participants saying they would see "a year-over-year increase in revenue in 2008 of open source related software and services."
78 percent of survey participants said "the affordable price of open source software" is motivating their customers.
The survey also revealed that open source companies are serious about collaboration. Nearly all of the survey respondents -- 97 percent -- reported that they have "active partnerships" with other open source software and services companies.
The average survey participant had 10 such partnerships.
“We knew that collaboration was important to open source companies, but this statistic was surprising,” said Dominic Sartorio, senior director of product management for SpikeSource and president of the Open Solutions Alliance.
The survey also shows that 85 percent of participants sell open source products or services that run on Microsoft (News - Alert) Windows or otherwise interoperate with Microsoft products.
In all 46 companies responded to the survey, both OSA members and non-members.
The Open Solutions Alliance is a nonprofit, vendor neutral consortium dedicated to driving the interoperability and adoption of comprehensive open solutions.
In April the Open Solutions Alliance held its first annual board of director elections.
The OSA, which celebrated its one-year anniversary in February, filled three vacant board positions by electing Deb Woods, vice president of product marketing at Ingres; Josep Mitjà, chief operating officer at Openbravo; andAnthony Gold ( News - Alert), vice president and general manager for the Open Source Business at Unisys.
They join existing board members Michael Harvey, EVP and CMO at Concursive, and Dominic Sartorio, OSA President and Senior Director of Product Management at SpikeSource.
Sartorio said the OSA "will continue to capitalize on its strength of being a diverse, multilateral organization with a shared goal of better interoperability of open-source point products and further adoption of open source in the enterprise."
The board's initial focus will be setting marketing priorities for the organization, specifically around new-member recruitment and best practices through the OSA's flagship project, the Common Customer View, or CCV, which works across back-office and front-office applications to show customer interactions.
Prior to her time at Ingres Woods was Vice President of Product Management at Red Hat (News - Alert).
Mitjà was reelected to the board for a second term and was active last year in establishing a European chapter of the OSA. Gold is a 20-year veteran atUnisys ( News - Alert) where he leads the open source business.