Open source has become big business, suggests an article in the Investors Business Daily, but it has done so by becoming more like the proprietary-software world it purports to leave behind.

Businesses that opt for open source solution equivalents of proprietary software applications can reduce the total budget required for its implementation and operation by 50% to 60% over three years. That’s according to Yossi Hasson, CEO of open source service provider Synaq.

When SugarCRM announced co-founder John Roberts’ (pictured) exit last week, some folks viewed the news in a vacuum — wondering what’s right (and wrong) with the open source CRM provider. But The VAR Guy is looking at the bigger open source picture and he sees some reasons for concern.

Red Hat is hitting the road and shaking hands with channel partners. In fact, the Linux and open source middleware provider is launching a training road show for Red Hat Advanced Business Partners. But that’s not all. The VAR Guy thinks Red Hat’s annual channel revenues will potentially top $600 million within five years, up from about $326 million today. Here’s the math.

Everybody know great free open source CMS Joomla. Joomla -one of the most famous free CMS came back in 2005 yet. Today, after 42 months it is very powerful CMS with a lot of plugins. Every day more and more websites start running on this CMS. But there is still a gap in using this CMS with organizations.

Novell senior cannot deny Microsoft takeover, but she thinks it is unlikely. What about Dell?

When software developers and architects select open source software over commercial alternatives, there is often a premise that because the software is free, (as in beer vs. speech) there is zero cost associated with the choice.