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Is your organization open to open source software? Based on research reports on the open source market, a growing number of organizations would answer “yes” to that question. Open source products can now be found in nearly every corner of the IT shop, and some businesses are using open source software to run some of their key business systems.

IDC in a research report released in May said worldwide revenue from standalone open source software reached $1.8 billion in 2006, and projected that revenue will reach $5.8 billion in 2011, for a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent during that period.

IDC noted that growth in revenue will lag behind the growth in distribution of open source software. Many distributions of standalone open source software are free, while paid distributions are typically based on pay-as-you-go subscriptions rather than license fees, IDC says.

The report shows that the drivers for open source adoption include increased interest in open source, as organizations realize that open source “provides them with more choice and leverage with proprietary software vendors.” Also helping to drive the growth of open source are greater financial backing from venture capitalists, a higher level of comfort with subscription revenue as a business model, and increased interest in open source in larger enterprises.

In a separate report, also released in May, IDC said shipments of Linux servers posted their second consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in the first quarter of this year, with year-over-year revenue growth of 10 percent, for a total of $1.6 billion in the quarter. IDC says Linux servers now represent 12.7 percent of all server revenue.

While Linux is perhaps the best-known open source development project, there are open source options for a variety of applications and functions. These include business intelligence, e-mail, Web browsers, security, desktop office applications, enterprise content management, enterprise resource planning, data base management systems, point-of-sale systems and customer relationship management.

Many of the leading IT hardware and software vendors have embraced open source as a growing market and offer a variety of products and support services.

The common motivator for deploying an open source product or launching an open source development project is cost savings. But that’s by no means the only reason. Some companies that are using open source products such as Linux say the software in some cases provides improved performance and more reliability than comparable commercial offerings.

Although one of the early concerns about open source was a lack of vendor support, companies that have deployed open source applications say they are finding support to be sufficient, whether they’re receiving it from a vendor that provides the software or from the global open source community or the original developers of the technology.

Companies in a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, financial services, retail and transportation, are deploying open source broadly. The software is expected to be particularly appealing to small and midsize businesses, which often function with limited IT budgets.

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