Cloud architecture has to be defined in a way that allows applications to move around, or clouds can become the mother of all lock-ins, warned Red Hat's CEO James Whitehurst.

"It used to be a kiss of death to present yourself as a genuine alternative to Windows," said Canonical Founder Mark Shuttleworth on opening new users' eyes to desktop Linux distros. "But the success of the Web and the success of Apple have really made the PC companies think that it is possible to offer something that is perceived to be valuable even if it is not Windows."

I summarize in this blog post the questions, challenges and objections that were mentioned during a conference about open source/FLOSS that I gave to about 20 IT directors of Small Businesses (100-500 employees).

Many times I have considered this very thing: Open a consultancy that focused primarily on Linux and open source. I knew there had to be a way to make it work. Many scoffed and said it couldn’t be done, that open source wouldn’t sell. But someone has done it, and done it well.

WORKSTATION AND SERVER VENDOR Silicon Graphics International (SGI) represents how a once fiercely proprietary company has been able to leverage open source for High Performance Computing (HPC), much to its benefit.

Mozilla's Firefox was born during a time when Microsoft's Internet Explorer had grown so fat and lazy that hacking off a massive chunk of its market share was almost a moral duty, one with a built-in fan club. "Anything but IE" was the mantra.

Wireless equipment manyfacturer Motorola looks to have snapped up the little known mobile software outfit Azingo. Azingo has a number of mobile oriented products on its books, however one, its Mobile 2.0 operating system is sure to raise eyebrows.

In the case of LOVEFiLM, now a well-known name in the DVD and digital film market, open source has underpinned much of the company's work thus far.