Most of our fellow web heads use Internet Explorer to browse the net. However, more and more are using Firefox, the free open source platform. In fact, there have been almost 200 million downloads to date. In Germany, 45% of web users use Firefox.
IBM has embraced open source with both arms. Red Hat is a billion-dollar company that focuses solely on open source integration and implementation (namely the Linus operating system). With $300M in annual revenue and a profit margin of nearly 27%, Red Hat has proven the financial viability of riding the open source train.
One company watching the open source content management and intranet sector closely is Optaros. An Optaros survey released last Christmas highlights the potential value of using Open Source.
The study was conducted in August and September 2005 with responses from 512 U.S. companies, government agencies and other organizations. The study found that the clear majority of organizations (87%) were using open source systems, software often available for free and built by communities of software developers. The most frequently-used open source software was the Linux operating system, the Apache web server, and web browsers, used at some level by more than 70% of the companies represented by the survey participants. About half the respondents were using open source database management systems and application servers in a single business function.
