OStatic

If you have trouble remembering the difference between all the acronym-laden open source organizations out there, now you'll have two less to recall. Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) and OW2 Consortium announced merger plans today. Paris-based OW2 focuses on open source middleware technology while California-based OSA drives adoption of open source software in enterprise. Together, they'll reach out to businesses, schools, and governments spanning several nations.

The Open Source Alliance (OSA) published its Annual Predictions Survey this week. It serves up the opinions of business leaders about Obama's impact on IT, where they think the technology market is headed, and why it's a bad idea to put projects on hold until the economy turns around.

The survey asked the CEOs of several companies around the world to look ahead at various issues near and dear to the hearts of the people within the tech sector and open source community. Respondents were asked to predict one software winner and loser in the year ahead, and also think about what kinds of business models are likely to emerge in the coming months.

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:

The Open Solutions Alliance (which you might recall as one of the sponsors of the Open Source Census) has released the results of a survey it did recently looking at business trends in commercial open source. The results paint a picture of an industry segment doing well, with a few challenges looming but easy continued growth.