Still don’t think open source hurts commercial software? Guess again

“Counterarguments arose that there would always be a need for
value-added commercial software and that even commercial software
vendors benefit from technologies they can get via open source. But
new research from Web application performance company New Relic
does support the notion that open source is eliminating the need
for commercial software, at least in the realm of Java application
servers in the cloud computing space.

“New Relic studied more than 1,000 of its cloud-oriented
enterprise customers to get feedback on how Java is being used. New
Relic found IBM’s commercial WebSphere application server was used
just 1.66 percent of the time and Oracle’s commercial application
server, WebLogic, was used in 0.51 percent of cases. (Surely,
Oracle had better numbers in mind when it acquired WebLogic in its
purchase of BEA Systems for $8.5 billion in 2008.)

“Open source alternatives fared much better. New Relic found
that 54 percent of those surveyed use Apache Tomcat servers, 16
percent use Jetty, and nearly 10 percent use JBoss. GlassFish, the
open source application server Oracle inherited from Sun
Microsystems, was used in about 3 percent of installations.”

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