Last week marked the public release of our third CAOS Report (press release) - ‘Going Open - Software vendors in transition.’

The growth of open source software is increasingly placing pressure on the business models of proprietary software vendors. As a result, software vendors are looking at open source as an opportunity to grow distribution, to improve customer participation and retention, and to possibly respond to competitive pressure.

This report examines the trend of proprietary software vendors ‘going open.’ It pays particular attention to those software vendors in transition that have made, or are in the process of making, a major business-model shift toward open source, and away from their proprietary, licensed software roots. The report attempts to capture the process of going open by looking at these software vendors, examining their own experiences and best practices. It shares some early examples that lay the groundwork for further advancement and that provide the background information necessary to understand the impact that this reshaping will have on the software industry. Although the report is focused on proprietary software vendors going open, it can also be applied to smaller-scale projects by proprietary software vendors, or to gain a better understanding of the inner workings of an open source competitor.

If you are an existing 451 CAOS client and would like to download the full report, or if you are not a 451 CAOS client but wish to inquire about accessing the full report, please visit the CAOS Report 3 page. 451 CAOS clients will need to log in from the report page (via the left nav login button) to access the download link.

I’ll be posting a blog entry about the upcoming CAOS Report #4 in the next day or so.