Companies who have previously relied upon software to generate revenue will see financial decline if they take the open source road.  This decline however is to be short lived and in the long run will prove to be a power play that will pay off in the future and here is why.

SUN Microsystems is a company who had previously generated alot of revenue by selling hardware and the Solaris UNIX operating system.  A while ago, SUN decided to take the leap toward the open source way of doing business.  This has resulted in loss of revenue and declines in sales.  I have read articles about the death of SUN on the New York Times website over the past few weeks. 

SUN has made moves to open source the Solaris operating system & various other software.  They have acquired a major open source company MySQL and allowed  the software to remain open source.  They have suffered financial losses due to this strategy.  Although they are currently struggling, do not count them out.  In my opinion, SUN is positioning themselves to be way ahead of the inevitable open source curve that is creeping into the mainstream technology sector.

I read something today that got me thinking.   

Cloud computing is the latest buzz in the technology sector.  Microsoft is gearing up to push this technology out to the world in the form of thier cloud based OS code named "Strata".  Google on the other hand is Microsoft's number one threat.  They have now announced they will be supporting java on thier AppEngine, which will definitely benefit SUN.  Oracle's CEO also badmouthed the cloud computing philosophy all toghether.  With other companies such as Cisco quickly adopting all things Linux and open source is more than just a trend.  This is a revolution that will shake the foundation of proprietary vendors such as Microsoft.  SUN might be suffering right now, but in a few more years when everyone in the technology arena feel the effects and are forced to move toward open source solutions, SUN will be years ahead.

Watch what is going on right now in the calm prior to the unstoppable storm of open source software in the technology sector.

Check back for future updates.

Quick and Dirty,

MrOss