Hello again, everyone. It’s been awhile since I’ve had the time to blog, other than my daily link lists, of course. I have been consumed with 451 CAOS Reports. Earlier this week, I finished the second CAOS Report, covering the topic of open source cost savings. You’ll be hearing more about this report in a few weeks when it launches publicly. A few days ago, I started work on the third CAOS Report, covering the trend of proprietary software vendors ‘going open.’

I need your help. I am in the process of compiling a list of vendors that have made the transition from proprietary to open. The requirement is that the vendor must have originally been proprietary, and is now primarily engaged in business activity around an open source offering. I am not going to cover startups that have been open source from the start or software vendors that are putting ‘a toe in the water.’ The focus here is on business models in transition.

So far, the vendor list includes Continuent, Covalent, Emu Software, Helmi Technologies, Hyperic, Intalio, JasperSoft, Laszlo Systems, Netscape (Mozilla), OpenClovis, PingTel, Project.Net (ICS), Qlusters, Scalix, and Zope. I am also considering the inclusion of Ingres, Sun Microsystems, Novell, Socialtext, Jive Software, Miro (Mambo), and Limewire.

Any there any vendors I should be talking to that are not listed above but meet the criteria? Also, do you know of any vendors that considered ‘going open,’ but decided against it or vendors that took an open source project or business model proprietary (other than Tenable with Nessus)?

I appreciate any feedback you can provide. Thank you.