We’ve been spending the week at the 451 Group’s 4th Annual Client Conference and speaking to vendors, investors and end users to get their latest perspectives on what is driving open source software in the enterprise.

One consistency among all of these different groups who produce, invest in, provide and use open source software is that while the typical open source advantages of cost and flexibility are still very significant, the biggest driver at the moment appears to be speed.

I think I first began noticing the importance and prominence of development and deployment speed in mobile open source software. As discussed at our client conference panel on the topic, we see hardware manufacturers, device players, wireless carriers and others all looking to mobile Linux and open source software to respond to Apple’s iPhone, which has also served to prove that a ‘non-mobile’ vendor can quickly and effectively stake a claim in the mobile market. These organizations realize that producing their own new operating system from scratch is neither realistic nor pragmatic, given the time and investment it would take. These companies are, however, looking to mobile Linux and open source software as a way to use existing, stable software as the basis for their own branded software and services. Examples include Google and Android, Palm’s WebOS, LiMO and Symbian, which is now being open sourced by Nokia and other backers that are part of the Symbian Foundation. The fact that we have gone from bascially one single Android smartphone in the market a year ago to the cavalcade of Android devices now arriving in various forms from different vendors is indicative of the speed at which open source software can move.

Throughout my conversations with folks attending our event, I’ve heard the speed theme again in other sectors and segments. Of course, application development is a fast-moving proposition, so again, we see vendors looking to open source software as a tool that can shorten their time to market. Again, cost of development, flexibility, customization, lock-in all loom as factors in favor of open source, but the single biggest driver again comes down to speed.

We’ve also seen speed as a factor for building and providing cloud computing infrastructure. Vendors report that Linux is ideal for cloud construction since the availability of source code means that unecessary pieces can be relatively easily and quickly cut out of the OS. In addition, we continue to see a blending of roles between software developer and system administrator/operations. The rise of the devops is also indicative of the need for speed. Developers are pushing to get software released and vetted. Administrators that might otherwise resist cloud computing or other models that may cause some concern about keeping their jobs are being forced to embrace cloud computing anyway. Why? The answer, again, is speed.

Open source is obviously often viewed as a part of agile development and more effective software development, as well as distribution. As the pressure to keep up in mobile, cloud computing and elsewhere continues to build, it will be interesting to see how far open source software’s speed advantages will take it.