New “Open Solutions Alliance” Formed by Leading Vendors to Drive Adoption of Open Source Business Solutions

OPEN SOLUTIONS SUMMIT, NEW YORK — Ten leading companies today announced the formation of the Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), a nonprofit, vendor-neutral consortium dedicated to driving adoption of comprehensive open source business solutions. Among its activities, the OSA will work with open source ISVs, systems integrators, and the broader open source community to improve interoperability among software products, resulting in integrated and rapidly deployable solutions for business users.

Founding members of the OSA include Adaptive Planning, Centric CRM, CollabNet, EnterpriseDB, Hyperic, JasperSoft, Openbravo, SourceForge.net®, SpikeSource and Talend. All companies interested in joining the OSA are invited to contact membership@OpenSolutionsAlliance.org or visit www.OpenSolutionsAlliance.org.

“More and more companies, from small businesses to global enterprises, are turning to open source software stacks for flexible, affordable solutions to their business challenges,” said Barry Klawans, OSA spokesperson and chief technology officer at JasperSoft, a market leader in open source business intelligence. “We’re inviting all companies developing and using open source software to work together and ensure the availability of turnkey, enterprise-ready solution suites faster and at a fraction of the cost of traditional proprietary alternatives.”

Initially, the OSA will focus its efforts on defining and promoting tools, frameworks and best practices that facilitate easy deployment and interoperability between applications. It will also build “meta-communities” by partnering on projects that involve a variety of companies, communities and individuals to drive innovation and collaboration. Finally, the OSA will coordinate joint marketing campaigns to raise the awareness of business-hardened, open source applications and solution suites.

"CollabNet is excited to be joining the OSA," said Brian Behlendorf, CTO of CollabNet and co-founder of the Apache Software Foundation. "Open Source has long been a no-brainer for infrastructural software and developer toolkits, and in the last few years we've seen it take the enterprise software world by storm. Yet, enterprises today don't use separate applications in isolation - they expect their applications to work together, both under the covers and with a consistent user experience. The building blocks to do this exist, and OSA will help its members and the public chart the path to getting there."
Open source software and products that incorporate open source software are an established part of today’s software market, giving customers more choice and flexibility than ever before. Open source software has a proven track record of success that includes the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server. Increasingly, companies are benefiting from open source above the operating system and middleware layers of the software stack, which is reflected in recent JMP Securities research predicting that the total open source software market will grow to $3 billion by 2009.

Analysts are also predicting that a wider portfolio of open source applications will become available this year, prompting companies migrating from proprietary software stacks to ask commercial open source software providers to offer the same levels of interoperability. While other consortia have focused on a specific technology or project, the OSA ‘s collective effort to provide interoperability among open source business-class software products is essential to ensuring the availability of open source suites to meet customer requirements and compete with proprietary alternatives.

"Enterprises want to focus their time and energy on solving business problems for their customers and for themselves, rather than on interoperability and integration issues," said Dave Gynn, director of Enterprise Tools and Frameworks at Optaros, an international consulting and systems integration firm. "The OSA will be a great champion for addressing interoperability issues and lowering other barriers to open source software adoption. This will allow enterprises to remain focused on meeting their business objectives."

About the Open Solutions Alliance
The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) is a nonprofit, vendor-neutral consortium dedicated to driving the adoption of comprehensive open source business solutions. Founded in 2007, it is supported by leading open source companies from around the world who are dedicated to improving interoperability among software products, resulting in integrated and rapidly deployable solutions for business users. Through cooperative action and advocacy, the OSA will help facilitate interoperability, reduce barriers to adoption and raise the awareness of the benefits of open source software in business. For more information, please visit www.OpenSolutionsAlliance.org.