Alfresco Software released a press release on the results of a survey by them intended to help determine "how companies evaluate and deploy open source and proprietary software stacks in the enterprise". There is some very interesting numbers summarized in the press release that should be of interest to not only using those Alfresco products, but to almost anyone using enterprise software. Some of the more interesting numbers and statistics pulled from the study:

• 
  Operating system: “Users evaluate on a Windows
  laptop and deploy on Linux” – 41% of evaluations were on Windows,
  dropping to 26% for deployments, whereas 51% of deployments were on
  Linux.
• 
  Linux: “Ubuntu and Red Hat pull away, SUSE remains flat by comparison in the US” – Ubuntu 24%, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 21%.
• 
  Windows: “Users stick with XP and 2003, Vista lags at 2%” – XP 63%, Windows 2003 28%.
• Databases: “Sun still shines on MySQL” – MySQL 60%, Oracle 14%, MS SQL Server 13%.

I especially find it interesting that while open source MySQL is the dominate database used on the enterprise, two propriety database systems (Oracle and MS SQL) follow. I wonder where PostGresSQL falls on the list? But wait, there are two points I want to make about this study.

"From business intelligence to CRM, from scheduling and e-procurement to database management and data governance, there is no shortage of enterprise applications available to help businesses make their processes more efficient. Choosing can be difficult, however: Do you go open source? Software-as-a-service, or in-house deployment? Every vendor has a sales pitch. Here are 10 worth watching."

Complete Story

A very interesting and very thought provoking article: RIP: Community Linux (1991-2007).  Now that I recognize things are changing for Linux and open source...I'm scared, confused, and afraid of change.

The idea that Linux is primarily a community-based project based on the work of thousands of independent, idealist hackers died a quiet death at home on March 27.

This story is a must read and worth a digg.  Please digg the complete story and not this post!

"Meanwhile, it's not immediately clear what the software model of the future will be. Kendall Whitehouse, a senior director of information technology at Wharton, notes that "there probably isn't one model that will win out. Instead, you will have a blend of business models." Kartik Hosanagar, an operations and information management professor at Wharton, agrees that a hybrid business model -- consisting of parts of traditional licensing, on-demand, ad supported and even open source -- will emerge in the software industry. "The winning model of the future is a hybrid," he says. "The only certainty is that the Internet will have a big impact" on whatever that winning model is."

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"I’m reading a research paper [PDF] by Nicholas Economides (NYU) and Evangelos Katsamakas (Fordham) called “Linux vs. Windows: A comparison of application and platform innovation incentives for open source and proprietary software platforms.” Long title, but the conclusion of the paper is relatively brief:

In our model, firms and developers invest to improve the quality of the platform or the application and expand the demand by users of these software products. When the operating system is proprietary, the platform provider and the application provider invest only in their own product to maximize their profit. When the operating system is open source, there is no platform provider firm, but the users invest in the platform to maximize their user surplus and their development reputation, which depends on the success of the platform measured by its adoption."

Complete Story