Open-Source Software Companies Face Challenge to Build Business
By Charles Garry  |  Posted 2005-08-10  Open-Source Software
Companies Face Challenge to Build Business        Click here to
read more about Oracle unleashing Database 10g R2.
Next Page: Competing with Microsoft, Oracle and IBM.  Competing
with Microsoft, Oracle  and IBM">  For the real low-end
customer, the one that would never pay for software regardless
of the features it offers, open source is great.  Unfortunately,
no new venture hoping to make a living can devote much energy on
those customers.  The only hope is that the very low-end
customer someday matures to a point where they require some
feature or service they cant get for free.  Predominantly,
however, open-source software companies, at least the ones
hoping to make money, are forced to compete for many of the same
customers that Microsoft, Oracle and IBM currently compete for.
It is this fact that leads me to believe that we can predict why
some open-source companie