451 CAOS Theory *
A blog for the enterprise open source community

Expertise

, November 12, 2008 @ 6:00 am ET

The 451 Group’s CAOS analysts have more than 20 years combined experience covering open source projects, communities, and vendors. The wider group of 451 analysts have produced more than 1,500 reports over the past five years that have analyzed open source technology providers, their business models and their competitive positioning at various levels.

As an independent observer and thought leader on open source, The 451 Group actively advises key players within the open source community and provides analysis of open source developments to a broad base of audiences.

Enterprise Open Source Research

The full list of published 451 Commercial Adoption of Open Source (CAOS) Research Service Reports can be found here. Recent highlights include:

Climate Change: User Perspectives on the Impact of Economic Conditions on Open Source Adoption
This report includes a survey of more than 1,700 open source software users and customers, assessing their current attitudes on the key benefits of open source software, including cost and flexibility. It also includes a comparison with a similar survey conducted by The 451 Group in 2006. The report also serves as a practical guide for understanding the financial benefits of open source, and includes an updated version of The 451 Group’s previously published guide for calculating the financial benefits of open source in enterprise IT projects. It provides IT managers, architects, vendors, investors and others with a basic financial analysis approach and calculator to identify and capture the costs and potential benefits of open source software.

The Myth of Open Source License Proliferation
This 451 CAOS report examines the claim – perpetuated by both proprietary vendors competing against open source and some within the larger open source community seeking limitations – that open source licenses are proliferating out of control. Instead, our research suggests that the abundance and variety of open source licenses has helped open source software and the vendors that choose it by providing flexibility, effective development and distribution, and the ability to mix open source with proprietary code and licensing.

Open to Investment
Venture Funding for Open Source 1997-2008. Vendors building businesses around open source software are attractive targets for private investors. This report assesses the history of private investment in open source vendors between 1997 and 2008, as well as investor motivations, exit strategies and the likely impact of economic conditions on future investment opportunities.

Mobility Matters
What are the hurdles, benefits, opportunities and risks to using open source in mobile software? How will it stack up against proprietary, sometimes entrenched, competition? What about adoption in the more mainstream consumer device market and the mobile enterprise — will open source present challenges or opportunities for vendors that choose it?

Open Source Is Not a Business Model
This report assesses the development, licensing and revenue-generation strategies used by vendors that market products and services based on open source code. The report is also designed to assess the impact that open source license choice, development model, vendor licensing strategy, revenue triggers and sales models have on each other in determining the overall business model used by businesses selling products and services based on open source software.

Forthcoming 451 CAOS Research Service reports will focus on:

  • Calculating cost savings from open source
  • Venture funding for open source
  • Open source sales and marketing
  • Open source and cloud computing
  • Evolving open source business strategies
  • Community engagement and enabling corporate contributions
  • Open source in the enterprise applications market

Media Coverage

Media outlets that turn to 451 analysts as thought leaders range from leading business/financial publications and major daily newspapers to key enterprise IT industry news organizations. Coverage has included:

Thought Leadership on Enterprise Open Source

451 CAOS analysts have presented their insight and expertise to a number of organizations at many open-source-related events. Recent activities include:

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