IDC: Open-Source Market to be Worth $5.8B by 2011. Techworld — A new IDC study has said the growth in adoption of standalone open-source software is accelerating and that the total market will be worth US$5.8 billion in 2011. The market reached $1.8 billion in 2006, and will grow 26 percent annually for the next four years, the firm predicted. The study is a relatively unusual effort to treat the sprawling, quick-changing open-source software market as a serious business, and indicates the growing business acceptance of open-source software.
IDC found that the open-source market is in a significant stage of growth, as previous barriers to adoption fall away. This is particularly true in the business world, where companies are waking up to the fact that open source opens up more choices and gives them something to use as a bargaining chip with proprietary software vendors. Financial backing from venture capitalists is helping to boost growth, IDC said. How To Get Started With Web 2.0 | InformationWeek. Eric Schmidt's tough talk - via Rough Type: Nicholas Carr&# « Universal sues MySpace over "user-stolen" content | Main | Microsoft's rebuttal » November 22, 2006 Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been coy in discussing his company's ambition to create an online alternative to Microsoft Office. Just a few days ago, at the Web 2.0 Summit, Schmidt "played the semantic game" in discussing office suites, reported Dan Farber.
Schmidt claimed "that Google is developing applications for just 'casual' use. 'We don’t call it an office suite. But a very different, and much more aggressive, Eric Schmidt appears in the Economist's new "World in 2007" issue. Suddenly, a seemingly modest goal of promoting the "casual" use of online office applications has become a tsunami that is about to "sweep aside" the proprietary protocals and formats "promoted by individual companies striving for technical monopoly.
" This marks a revealing rhetorical shift for Schmidt, who's been careful (and, I think, wise) in avoiding a head-on attack on Office. Coy Eric vs Tough Eric. Businesses Don't Need Microsoft Software.