Stories by: Jason Snyder

Long adept at staving off targeted threats to its core revenue streams, by 2013 Microsoft finally fell prey to the micromarket effect. Linux on increasingly popular UMPCs (ultramobile PCs), the rise of OpenOffice in developing nations, and the customized productivity app marketplace borne of Google's App Engine application-hosting service and its Salesforce and eBay acquisitions -- all chipped deeply enough into Microsoft's core customer base that the company finally had to loosen its grip on the computing industry's once-best legal license to print money, its Office and Windows software business.

Fulfilling the demand for broadband to millions of users across the globe takes more than just ingenuity, it takes energy -- lots of it. Accounting for nearly 1 per cent of total power consumption in the UK alone, BT Group was faced with a dilemma: how to scale and roll out new services to take advantage of new market opportunities without overburdening its energy budget -- and the climate.

As vice president of open source and standards at IBM, Robert Sutor is charged not only with advocating use of open source among IBM customers but also ensuring adherence to open source standards and policies within IBM. Here's how Sutor sees the open source landscape evolving.

Dave Rosenberg, CEO and co-founder of open source SOA infrastructure software vendor Mulesource, is well-versed in capitalizing on open source opportunities in the enterprise, transforming projects into products with viable business models. Here's how Rosenberg sees open source's business opportunities evolving.

As vice president of business development at open source enterprise content management vendor Alfresco, Matt Asay is well-versed in the challenges open source projects face in capitalizing on today's business opportunities. Here's how Asay sees the open source movement evolving.

Viewed by many as open source's most compelling business play in the past few years, MySQL made waves this year, accepting Sun Microsystems' US$1 billion acquisition bid, opening eyes on Wall Street as to open source's potential to shake up the software industry in the process.