We continue to see evidence that open source software is helping vendors expand and grow globally. The latest announcement from
French BPM vendor BonitaSoft, which is establishing U.S. offices in Boston and San Francisco, is a prime example. We covered BonitaSoft’s expansion and approach in July, which leverages more than 300,000 downloads of the software and presence in more than 20 countries.

Another example of an open source vendor expansion and growth in North America is OTRS, a help desk and ITIL service management software and support vendor from Germany that is also growing its presence in the U.S. and rest of North America.

The global expansion and cross-continental movement is not limited to European players coming to the U.S. The recent deal between open source services and support vendor Ixxus and Opsera for the latter’s consulting business was centered on growth for UK-based Alfresco CMS in Europe. Through the deal, Opsera is now focused on its Opsview systems management software and further global expansion.

We remarked on this this cross-country and cross-market activity for open source last year, when we covered some extension into Europe and other markets by Linux vendor Red Hat and further inroads in the U.S. for Linux rival Novell, among other developments.

Other geographies that continue to be significant for these and other vendors centered on open source software include Latin America and South America, Asia-Pacific and Australia. Based on our findings from Closing the Deal with Community, our look at sales and marketing for open source software, vendors will continue to leverage the Internet-based, dispersed nature of their communities to find other locales around the world where their software and services are wanted and needed.

We continue to see a significant differences in various geographical markets for open source, particularly between the U.S. and Europe, with the U.S. characterized by more direct selling of open source and related services, and Europe dominated by system integrators and other partners integral to reaching consumers. Nevertheless, these differences may be subsiding as sales channels in the U.S. — made up of SIs, VARs, ISVs, service providers and others — begin awakening to open source, and more maturity of open source in Europe ushers in more direct selling there, too.