Open Source Solutions

We've written before about commodization and consolidation in the software industry, and the imteraction of trend toward open source with these two trends. One result, as Nicholas Goodman writes, is that open source companies are generating income...

To put that in perspective, I bet that surpasses the annual revenue for JBoss, MySql, SugarCRM, Alfresco, Zimbra, Suse Linux revenues etc. The only open source play I don't think it tops is Red Hat. I'd love comments on this if you think my guesses are incorrect (all private companies so no way to know for sure).
-- Bayon Technologies :: That whole "Freedom" thing pays

I remember reading an estimate that JBOSS had a gross income of US$40 million, but as I write this I can't find the article, so don't trust this figure at all. Suse is part of Novell, though I don't believe they report figures for Suse separately. So, Nick, you may be correct in saying that Mozilla's 72MM USD income is tops, other than Red Hat. And Ingres is likely to far exceed that, once they've completed their first year as an open source vendor.

Nick cites quite a few other bloggers. I've done a trackback to them as well - mostly to show Nick how trackbacks can add to the conversation. Nick - thank you for turning trackbacks on at your blog.

• Firefox (Mozilla Corporation/Mozilla Foundation) made $72M last year?!
• DIGG: Mozilla made $72 million from Firefox
• apply pinky to corner of mouth
• John Roberts OSBC keynote: Commercial open source
• News: Free-lovin' Firefox making serious bank ($72M)
• If Open source doesn’t change the way we think about business then it is a waste of our time.