Germany and France significantly increase Open Source adoption

Forrester, an independent technology and market research firm, published the summary of their recent survey on IT trends. More than 1'000 seniors who are responsible for software development answered Forrester's questionnaire on IT trends.

Open Source followed by Business Process Management and Unified Communications are the current top priorities.

Answers to the question: How are your firm's plans with regard to Open Source software?

One thing is sure: Open Source is used in and for business.

If approximately 50% of the IT developments happing in Mirosoft's product environment, then almost all of the companies who run non-Microsoft based developments use Open Source. That is a sizable market share.

At first glance, the numbers seem to suggest that the USA and Canada are trailing behind Germany and France. I think that's a misinterpretation. I assume that the adoption of Open Source is still slightly ahead there and consequently, less firms have needs to extend their existing Open Source solutions. What these figures show is

• Germany and France are catching up in a high pace – more pilot projects

• In the USA and GB firms are expanding their Open Source base of applications – more implementation projects

The German Open Source market is more mature than the French one: 24% of the German firms will extend their Open Source based installations. The French market is the most dynamic: 31% of the firms run pilot projects based on Open Source.

Dear actuaries: PillarOne is professional Open Source, nothing exotic. It might fit well into your company's IT strategy.

--Markus