Open Source: the Ecosystem

businessWeek reports that investors are picking up on open source applications.

The open-source movement is making another big thrust forward. Entrepreneurs,
investors, and many analysts say they're confident that all of a company's
business software -- representing hundreds of millions in sales -- will soon be
available as open source.

$400M have beem pumped in 50 open source companies by venture capitalists in only 18 months - born with Linux in 1991, the open source trend has become an unstoppable wave threatening companies such as Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, etc .. whose business model relies on licence sales.

What is surprising is that most of open source companies are already profitable - MySQL is expected to make $ 40M in revenue this year.

An other interesting part of the article is an illustration of new business models such as Compiere:

THREE REQUIREMENTS. But Compiere makes money on only a small percentage of
its customer base. It relies on a network of some 60 independent resellers to do
a lot of the customization its software requires. Some implementations reach the
$50,000 range, but Compiere takes just a small cut of that. But with very low
overhead, the company has been profitable since 2003 and is doubling revenue
every year, Janke says. "Our business model isn't to conquer the world or to be
super-profitable," he says. "We just want to have a sustainable business."

You can find the rest of the article here: businessweek.com