OStatic

While we've all been speculating about whether Dell is working on Android netbooks, the computer hardware and software vendor was busy bundling open source applications to offer to small- and medium-sized business (SMB) customers looking for low cost alternatives to commercial software. The pre-configured SMB-in-a-box software is only available in the U.S. for now, but Dell expects to lauch a similar offering in Asia by the end of 2009.

According to a poll conducted by software security company Palamida, most businesses expect their IT budget to drop in the coming months but less than half plan to use open source software to fill in the gaps. At first glance, that seems like some pretty lousy news and also appears to fly in the face of what we've heard before. Before we panic, let's take a closer look at what these survey results mean.

Talk about a company making lemonade out of the economy's lemons. There's a lot of talk about how the sluggish economy is a boon to the adoption of open source in enterprise, but enthusiastic IT managers are often met with resistance from business owners who don't understand what open source technology is all about, or how to use it.

OpenLogic has put together a series of training services that will help companies learn the ins and outs of using open source software. There are 4 different training options to choose from, ranging from days-long workshops to shorter sessions that last only a few hours. OpenLogic even offers a mentoring program for companies that need specific types of knowledge transfer. Training is typically done on-site, however some programs can be conducted as online tutorials.

Since forming in 2007, the vendor-neutral nonprofit consortium Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) has been working toward raising the awareness of open source in enterprise through a combination of education and marketing. As the group prepares to enter the new year, the OSA announced today that a new leadership team is poised to take over. Anthony Gold, vice president and general manager of open source business at Unisys, will replace former OSA president Dominic Sartorio as president of the organization.

OStatic caught up with Gold recently and asked him to share his vision as OSA's new president, and tell us a little about where the Alliance is headed. Here's what he had to say:

Matt Asay at CNET directs readers to Glyn Moody's take on the Gartner Group's findings that 85% of enterprises are using open source software.

The Gartner numbers seem positive, and encouraging -- especially in light of the acknowledgement that the remaining 15% are planning to move toward more open source software in the near future. Then Gartner drops the bad news -- cases that Moody says don't end badly (they are usually remedied with a polite phone call) or even happen terribly frequently (12 or so cases a year) -- that 69% of companies have no formal method of evaluating and cataloging their open source applications, leaving them at risk of intellectual property liabilities.