“After nearly two years of legal wrangling, Wednesday’s call
for a Microsoft (MSFT) breakup came as a bit of an anticlimax.
Still, Linux-related companies managed to reap some benefit, thanks
in large part to encouraging financial news in other corners of the
open source business sector.”
“Considering that Corel has warned analysts not to expect a
sales surge from its Linux distribution until the fourth quarter,
Bagnall wondered if amputations weren’t in order. “This could
include the sale of its equity stake in affiliated companies such
as Ottawa-based Rebel.com or Graphon Corp. of Campbell, Calif.,”
Bagnall wrote.”
“With investors suddenly demanding a faster road to
profitability, companies in the commodity Linux distribution and
services market are hard pressed. Fortunately for Collab.net, the
company has built up a unique niche, intermediary development
services, that affords multiple revenue streams. The company’s
flagship service is SourceXchange, a reverse auction website where
companies can post a list of desired software projects and open
source development teams can bid for the work. The company also has
initiated project hosting and consulting services within the last
12 months, helping firms such as Hewlett-Packard court open source
developers to work on proprietary projects such as eSpeak.”