Stories by: Jason Snyder

Long adept at staving off targeted threats to its core revenue streams, by 2013 Microsoft finally fell prey to the micromarket effect. Linux on increasingly popular UMPCs (ultramobile PCs), the rise of OpenOffice in developing nations, and the customized productivity app marketplace borne of Google's App Engine application-hosting service and its Salesforce and eBay acquisitions -- all chipped deeply enough into Microsoft's core customer base that the company finally had to loosen its grip on the computing industry's once-best legal license to print money, its Office and Windows software business.

Fulfilling the demand for broadband to millions of users across the globe takes more than just ingenuity, it takes energy -- lots of it. Accounting for nearly 1 per cent of total power consumption in the UK alone, BT Group was faced with a dilemma: how to scale and roll out new services to take advantage of new market opportunities without overburdening its energy budget -- and the climate.

Mark Spencer, founder and CTO of Digium, has successfully given open source VoIP platform Asterisk a voice in the enterprise, thanks in large part to an ongoing commitment to community development. Here's how Spencer sees open source's best bets for seizing business opportunities.

As vice president of open source and standards at IBM, Robert Sutor is charged not only with advocating use of open source among IBM customers but also ensuring adherence to open source standards and policies within IBM. Here's how Sutor sees the open source landscape evolving.

Notorious open source advocate and author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric S. Raymond brings colorful acumen to any open source discussion. Here's how Raymond views the continually evolving open source landscape.

Dave Rosenberg, CEO and co-founder of open source SOA infrastructure software vendor Mulesource, is well-versed in capitalizing on open source opportunities in the enterprise, transforming projects into products with viable business models. Here's how Rosenberg sees open source's business opportunities evolving.

Javier Soltero, CEO of open source IT management software vendor Hyperic, has garnered significant wisdom transforming open source projects into enterprise products and expresses keen interest in the need to match worthwhile open source undertakings with the appropriate business model. Here's how Soltero sees the open source movement evolving.

As senior director of platform technology at Microsoft, Sam Ramji is positioned uniquely at the nexus of proprietary and open source development models. Here's how Ramji sees open source and proprietary development models evolving.

Chris DiBona is a key advocate of open source development at Google, where he spearheads the Google Summer of Code and oversees license compliance. A former editor of Slashdot, DiBona is no stranger to the passions of the open source community. Here's what DiBona sees brewing for open source.

Bruce Perens, a longtime leader in the open source movement, is rarely remiss in speaking his mind on open source matters. Here's how Perens breaks down the key opportunities and challenges for open source in the years to come.

As CEO of EnterpriseDB, Andy Astor endeavors to raise the profile of the PostgresQL open source database to the level of prominence he believes it deserves. But when it comes to capitalizing on an open source project's potential, there is much debate regarding the appropriate business model to employ. Here's how Astor sees the possibility of coexistence between developers and capitalists unfolding.