InfoWorld: Are you seeing more enterprises looking first for free, or so-called free, open source software rather than looking to buy software these days?

Polese: One thing that I've noticed, just in the last year or so, is a change in attitude on the part of enterprises, and they're moving from kind of kicking the tires with open source to realizing that open source has already been at their enterprise, and they need help in the form of third parties basically managing and maintaining that open source software. So it's becoming, first of all, acknowledged open source, that is acknowledged as mainstream within the enterprise.

And then secondly, it's becoming increasingly not just another option or a cheaper option, but even a safer choice [than] proprietary software in some cases, particularly in the area of infrastructure where CIOs [and] VPs of IT don't want to be beholden to one vendor, don't want to be locked into a particular infrastructure or deal with the silos of the past. So it's almost becoming a norm that enterprises are moving toward open source, particularly in the area of infrastructure. And I think over the next year or two, we'll start to see the application adoption happening as well.

InfoWorld: When you say applications, what kind of applications? I know there's SugarCRM, but what are some of the other application options for open source?

Polese: There's been a whole crop of companies that have emerged over the last six months or so, and they include Alfresco, for content management; Pentaho, for business intelligence; GroundWork for IT management and monitoring. The list goes on. Funambol, this is mobile applications -- the Java environment for telephones and handhelds, and Compiere, which is an ERP company. So basically, name a category and there are one or more commercial providers of services for open source applications.