The latest report from the 451 Group’s CAOS (commercial adoption of open source) practice is now available, presenting an analysis of venture capital funding for open source software-related vendors in 2009. Some of the key statistics are as follows: As you can see, VC funding for OSS-related vendors was down considerably in 2009, as predicted. [...]

Red Hat is celebrating the 10 year anniversary of its initial public offering. An anniversary to be proud of for Red Hat, but one that has given The VAR Guy pause for thought about the relative success of open source in the past 10 years. “Would anyone have predicted that no additional open source companies [...]

Yesterday The 451 Group published Open to Investment, the latest CAOS research report, which examines the past, present and future of venture capital investment in open source-related vendors. The report contains analysis of the history of venture funding in open-source-related firms between 1997 and 2008, based on The 451 Group’s database of more than 370 [...]

Matt Asay writes today about the prospects for open source vendors going public or, more likely, being acquired, and wonders whether open source vendors should “hold out for an IPO” or “capitulate” and be acquired. The latter seems far more likely, especially in the current economic climate. We have written before about the open source [...]

It’s good to see MySQL’s CEO, Marten Mickos, explaining his reasons for abandoning the company’s IPO in favor of being acquired by Sun. What made him and the open source database company’s top brass change their minds (apart from $1bn)? Mickos lists ten factors that convinced him that Sun was the better option: “1. Jonathan [...]

Earlier this month I took a look at Fortune’s tips for initial public offerings in 2008 and passed comment on the open source-related contenders. Given the events of the past ten days or so it is worth taking another look at the open source vendors that might make IPO candidates between now and the turn [...]

“2008 is starting with a bang for open source,” wrote Mark Radcliffe last week, and he’s not wrong. Not only did we see Sun’s $1bn acquisition of MySQL, but we’ve also seen an extraordinary amount of venture capital funding. Today saw no fewer than three investments announced, with Greenplum landing $27m Series C, Zenoss closing [...]

Fortune magazine has published a list of its hot IPO tips for 2008. Three out of the five – MySQL, Ingres and SugarCRM – are open source companies, while another – Parallels – is an open source project sponsor (for the record, the other Fortune tip is ExactTarget). Here’s a look at Fortune’s assessment of [...]

Henry Blodget is a name I haven’t heard in a while. The former securities analyst, who is banned from the securities industry for life following allegations of fraud, has returned to the headlines this week with his suggestion that the Mozilla Foundation could and should file for IPO this year or next. Blodget’s theory has [...]

Sourcefire, Inc., founded by Snort creator Marty Roesch, has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public. The Columbia, Maryland-based company says in the filing that 2005 revenues rose 97%, to $32.9m from $16.7m. For the nine months ended September 30, 2006 revenues increased 36%, to $28.9m from $21.2m over [...]

Trolltech, an open source company focused on the cross-platform and mobile development tools space, had its initial public offering today on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE: TROLL) today. Shares were offered at 16 NOK (Norwegian Kroner), which is approximately $2.57 US, and closed on its first day slightly up at 17.50 NDK, approximately $2.81 US. [...]