[via Nick-are-you-really-on-holidays and BusinessWeek]

Very good summary of the status of the Open Source trend and business! Some excerpts:

• In fact, open-source programs have become so popular, they now pose a legitimate threat to the established software giants.
• According to a new study by consulting firm Optaros, 87% of organizations are now using open-source software, somewhere.
• Red Hat finally proves to everyone it can make money from free software. […] Red Hat is one of the best-positioned stocks in software and should be able to further capitalize on the growing demand for open source.
• Sun Microsystems open sources everything — except Java. […] The move transformed Sun into one of the largest open-source software players overnight. Yet critics have complained that what open-source developers really want is Java. Several experts expect that Sun might finally capitulate in 2006.
• Even more exciting for penguin lovers, Motorola, the second-biggest handset maker in the world, announced that Linux would be its standard operating system for the bulk of its future phones.
• Firefox goes mainstream.
• Venture capitalists wake up to open source. Industry estimates show some $400 million was invested in open-source startups in 2005. Two types of companies dominated the landscape: First, so-called application companies, such as SugarCRM which makes customer relationship management software for companies and aims to compete with Siebel and Salesforce.com.

  The other category is services companies, which play the middleman between open-source projects and the info-tech departments at large corporations. Companies such as SpikeSource and SourceLabs test and maintain applications like SugarCRM for companies […]

  Half the companies that raised venture money in 2005 won’t be able to raise money in 2006.

• All in all, it has been a pretty great year for open source. And 2006 may be even bigger and better.