Technology companies negotiate a particularly messy obstacle course from the moment of conception -- jumping hurdles associated with venture capital, fending off and holding their own with fierce (and worthy) competitors, constantly changing and innovating products and services to meet the demands of the customer base. Open source companies have an additional complicating factor -- the business model is mysterious to many potential customers, and competitors (fierce, worthy, or otherwise) are often 800 pound gorillas with names and logos recognizable to CTO, CIO and Luddite alike.

Perhaps the silver lining for open source companies forging onward for larger market share is that they realized early on that adaptability is the norm, that weak points can become strengths if they're recognized and effectively addressed as soon as possible -- and that if a single open source company is unable to wrestle a significant percentage of the marketshare from an 800 pound gorilla, two or three 400 pound free software-touting orangutans can make a real impression.

Maybe my take on Open-Xchange's partnership with SugarCRM is more "Animal Planet" inspired than that of The VAR Guy, but it's very much in agreement. Open-Xchange has made its open source Exchange Server alternative -- and SugarCRM's open source customer relationship software -- infinitely more useful and appealing by facilitating data sharing between social networks, SugarCRM applications and Open-Xchange address books.

GigaOm has an interesting post up today on how technology mergers and acquisitions are back in favor. At the end of last year, I predicted that 2009 would be filled with many open source-related mergers and acquisitions. So far, the pace has been slower than I expected, although there have been some blockbuster-sized acquisitions, including Oracle's $7.4 billion play for Sun Microsystems, and VMware's $420 million acquisition of SpringSource. Are we about to see open source-related acquisitions pick up significantly, and do we want to see that happen? Who is ripe for the picking?

Today must be cloud computing day in the open source world. In addition to this morning's announcement about Eucalyptus Systems focusing on open source cloud tools, SugarCRM has announced that it is putting an offering called Sugar Express on its Sugar Open Cloud. Sugar Open Cloud is an on-demand computing platform, and Sugar Express is an online hosted version of SugarCRM's open source customer relationship management software aimed at individuals and businesses "who need a low-cost solution,"--apparently. Comparatively, though, the cost doesn't seem to be so low.