As I was thinking about the way companies (mostly software vendors) position towards Open Source, I realized I could try to categorize them.
Here is what I came up with:
- The truly committed
- The mixed-codebase
- The pragmatics
- The anti-strategist
- The headless chickens
- The in-denial
- The anti-OSS
The first category, the "truly committed", bundle companies that make of Open Source their principal strategy. This category has gained increased attention from CxO and has already won support from a massive number of developers. The clear advantage of such a positioning is that it is very easy read. Examples of such companies include Red Hat, MySQL and obviously JBoss, but also a growing number of smaller companies trying to find their way through similar business models. We could certainly split that specific category in sub-categories, depending on the way software and services are being developed, distributed and monetized, but that is a different topic.
The second category, the "mixed-codebase", gathers companies with an increasing commitment to an Open Source strategy but that also have some existing critical revenue streams to protect, and hence cannot simply switch to a full OSS strategy overnight. "Mixed-codebase" companies not only deploy on/use Open Source software (as an ISV), but also actively contribute to (or even lead) OSS projects and have some clear OSS alliances reinforcing this strategy. Examples of such companies include Novell and Computer Associates. I mostly see the "mixed-codebase" category has a transition step: companies will eventually move to category 1 (successful transition) or 3 (retrenchment), depending on how well they execute their transition, how well they can convert their existing revenue streams, how frequently they change their CEO, etc. I do not know of any company that would have successfully switched from a traditional company to a category 1 company yet. My bet is that such a thing will take place in the next 2 years.
The third category, the "Pragmatics", communicate a lot about their love of Open Source even though they usually only contribute marginally to OSS projects (if at all). These companies mostly develop proprietary software (ISV) and deploy it on (and make use of) Open Source software as a way to maximize their target market. This is a very comfortable situation to be in as it is a cheap way to advertise you have an OSS strategy, surf on the OSS wave and not take too much risk. This strategy is specifically interesting if you don't really feel threatened by an Open Source competitor on your own market segment. A well-known example is Oracle and their commitment to Linux as a deployment platform.
The fourth category, the "anti-strategist", are frequently confused with the second category (the "mixed-codebase" companies) as they share lots of common attributes (contribution to OSS projects, etc.) but are fundamentally different. While the "mixed-codebase" see OSS as something that will actively drive the strategy of the company (go-to-market, product development, monetization, etc.), the "anti-strategists" mostly use OSS as a way to fight competition ("anti-pattern"). "Anti-strategists" consider OSS as one of the tools at their disposal to fight the market, but not as an inherent attribute/value of the company. "Anti-strategists" are usually smart enough to benefit from the side effects of their actions and properly monetize it, but this is not what originally led them. Anti-strategies are dangerous as they can backfire. IBM (and its Linux vs. Microsoft story) is a famous member of that category.
The fifth category, the "head-less chickens" (*1), are usually ex-"in-denial" companies (see category 6 below) under pressure of Open Source and paying the price of their denial. A specific attribute of such companies is that they can come come-up in a very short timeframe with any of the 4 first positioning described above, in random order, as a way to satisfy their Board/investors/customers. Typical scenarios include Open Sourcing uninteresting part of their codebase that nobody will want to pay money for anyway, providing their software as an Open Source version for the children and a for-pay version for the adults (no credibility), joining/creating random OSS projects just to fill in the strategy gap, etc. Their real underlying strategy is to undermine as less revenues as possible while waiving hands as much as possible. Unlike chickens, companies can recover if well managed (sewing a different head can be a good start of the recovery process).
The sixth category, the "in-denial", prefer not to see Open Source and will make sure to mention its existence as less as possible. When you speak about OSS to such a company representative, (s)he will usually stare at a virtual spot on the ceiling and start whistling a well-known song. Like for the second category ("mixed-codebase"), I also see this category as a transition stage. Abuse of that stage usually leads to stage five ("head-less chicken").
The seventh and last category, the "anti-OSS", like the first category ("the truly committed"), benefits from an extremely clear positioning: they hate Open Source. Given the popularity of Open Source on the market, very few companies risk that positioning as it might backfire. Microsoft is a well known member of that category. I have to admit I admire their commitment to this unpopular strategy. To succeed in it, it is essential to keep a clear and active communication on the evil Open Source. In that regard, I have been disappointed recently when Microsoft mentioned they "provide lots of Open Source code" referring to MSDN code snippets (Ashim Pal, Gartner Panel, Barcelona, 2005) as well as when they backed WiX. By not being clear-cut and vocal, "anti-OSS" companies take the risk to become passive "in-denial" companies with the song of the hatchet not far around.
I think only strategies 1, 2, 3 and 7 can be stable positions (with strategy 2 offering a good runway), while the others are unstable.
What is the strategy of your main software vendors?
1) Have you ever seen what happens when you cut the head of a chicken? The headless body start running left and right until it collapses.