Open Source Unleashed

More thoughts on industry analysts and open source

After posting my original thoughts on industry analysts and open source my initial inclination was to leave the subject at that.  However, Joe Niski from Burton Group left a thoughtful comment which motivated me to add further commentary. Even after responding to Joe's comment on the post I considered a particular statement of his worth exploring in a separate post. Joe mentioned that:

"...unless you're talking about a really well-established best-of-breed product, it's a lot harder to get useful information on OSS projects *unless you're in a position to download, install, and evaluate them first-hand*. i suspect that makes them inaccessible to some analysts."

I'm with Joe on this one but I also think that the availability of products, source code and transparent development communities as a result of the open source model isn't a side effect so much as it is a call for analysts to adjust their approach accordingly. Think of it this way, if [insert name of any given Fortune 500 proprietary software vendor] decided to provide industry analysts with open access to at least 85% of their development activities including visibility into the code base as well as an openly available version of [insert name of a product from the same Fortune 500 software vendor], wouldn't research consumers expect a little bit more from analyst coverage of that aforesaid technology? To me, the option to evaluate software first hand should work to make it MORE accessible to ALL analysts. Not only that but it works at obliterating barriers to producing useful analysis by more than a "chosen few."

Obviously, industry analysts shouldn't be charged with becoming power users nor with attaining ingrained familiarity with the technologies they cover, but there is still room to expand capabilities in light of being granted added transparency...it doesn't have to be an either-or-proposition. The RedMonk team stays well tuned to the developer grapevine and reaps the benefits of doing so. Maintaining close contact with those who sport first hand experience can be counted as nothing but a positive. Along those same lines, how much would analysts benefit from getting an actual feel for technology? Considering how much is gained from assuming the perspective of a user, I would say quite a bit. From my perspective, as companies get smarter and more enterprise open source goes mainstream this is set to become part of the future role of analysts. As more sources of quality analysis arise across the long tail, the more earned insight that can be provided the better.

Does downloading, installing and spending time using a piece of software guarantee understanding of product strengths/weaknesses, vendor capabilities or feature completeness? Absolutely not. Yet how many products which don't require domain-specific knowledge, i.e. developer-centric tools, is it useful to neglect an evaluation in the first person...especially as it relates to open source? I can't help but think that it is essentially hypocritical for the analyst community to give lip service to open source disruption without doing our part to adjust to it.

Technorati Tags: industry analysts |  open source software | Burton Group | the role of analysts

Are industry analysts doing their part to respond to open source?

Savio's post on open source and IT analyst firms got me thinking about how the disruptive nature of open source is affecting not only the business of software but also the industry analyst community. It's well documented that proprietary software companies must begin to evolve alongside the paradigm shift represented by open source but there's less talk about what IT analysts must do to adapt. James McGovern is a big proponent for including open source in the same research as proprietary products a la an open source friendly Magic Quadrant and this is a valid point.

However, what stands out as more critical is the need to ensure that approaches to covering open source technology are aligned to its unique nature. Even if it's a given that strong software products and vendors exhibit similar characteristics regardless of the type of development model employed, there are fundamental differences in the companies and business models built around each. As a result, in order for evaluation techniques, research methodologies and inclusion criteria to remain current against the backdrop of an increasing number of open source players they must adjust.

Savio mentioned that:

"Analysts help customers make purchase decisions.  Analysts also educate the market on new technologies."

Yet how are analysts responding to the changing nature of product development as it relates to open source? In order to speak from a position of expertise you've got to grasp the often complex nature of technology. Purchasing decisions are based on proven value propositions and expressing them requires an understanding of why and how technology matters. From a finished product perspective, features are features are features. But a complete portrayal of the vision, capability and viability of commercial open source vendors entails a measurement of the entire equation. A task which points to question marks regarding assumptions about the accepted methods of qualitative analysis.

Is it possible that the prospect of evaluating the size of an install base for an open source product is complicated by reality of the free, unpaid user? What value is attributed the value of open source code? If the dynamics of the software industry have changed such that there never is a $1B commercial open source vendor, does this negatively affect how open source is viewed by Gartner, Forrester, IDC et al.? Views which still hold more than enough sway over how the majority of enterprise CIO's look at open source, by the way. Entiva is able to focus on open source exclusively and that tunnel vision is both good and bad. Yet I'm convinced that it's going to take a widespread adjustment by the larger IT analyst community before open source gets its proper due. I'm interesting in hearing what anyone else thinks...

Technorati Tags: industry analysts |  open source software | Gartner | Forrester | IDC | Entiva Group

Briefing analysts on open source

In light of John Simonds' timely post on The Differences in Briefing IT Analysts and Press, I thought it might be useful to provide some tips on briefing analysts on open source. I won't reiterate too many of the main points from John's post since he was right on the mark throughout. Plus, my perspective is that precedent and accepted best practices which have proven effective previously are sufficient in covering the basics, but there are certain areas/topics/subjects that can really hurt the quality of a briefing with an open source vendor if they aren't addressed efficiently or worse yet, at all.

Of course, no two briefings are the same and there are plenty of reasons to deviate and/or improvise according to the situation. Nonetheless, if your company has an open source powered business model and are interested in communicating it's value proposition there are several points to keep in mind:

1. Don't assume in depth knowledge about open source. Even if vendors who brief any of us at Entiva can safely make this assumption, it's useful to avoid doing so across the board. Of course, we're by no means the only analysts who keep track of this area, but if you're not certain it helps to find out how much is known about open source before glossing over important facts, info, events, etc. This is obviously a moot point if you have enough prior experience with the individual/firm.
2. Demonstrate how you're more than open source in name only. Demonstrating a firm comprehension of what it takes to build and run an open source company will help when it comes time to develop a personal evaluation of a company's future prospects. As humans, analysts are still prone to developing an individual take on if a company has what it takes to succeed over the long haul. Making your commitment to open source lucid isn't necessary for silly idealogical reasons but in order to convey concrete synchronicity with messaging as an open source vendor.
3. Don't regurgitate product literature. Product and company highlights are always welcome, but copy/paste work from sections of a website isn't necessary. If that sort of information is relevant to the content of the briefing, it helps to have links to that material referenced in an pre-briefing email with the presentation attached to it.
4. Take time to mention community. Yes, you are running a for-profit business and the concept of making more money than you spend hasn't changed much since the dawn of the human enterprise. However, what separates you from a proprietary company is that fuzzy concept called community. Accordingly, it helps to hear about the progress, growth and potential of that community. Believe it or not, this matters as much as customer wins, partnerships and new releases.
5. Mention how the open source model benefits you and your customers. Regardless of the hype surrounding the "realization" that CIO's don't really care about open source, only about utilizing technology to solve business problems. Open source does enable companies to pass a significant amount of added value to customers, whether the buy side realizes it or not. As a result, analysts can stand to hear some details about how this is happening. If an open distribution model lowers barriers to product evaluation which gives way to a shorter sales process, paint that picture with real-world examples instead of leaving it to the imagination. We might know what open source is supposed to do, show us how this might be happening with respect to your business.

Are there more points of note? Yes. Are most solely applicable to open source vendors? No. For example, from doing some talking around I've found that briefings which allow room for conversational type inputs tend to be more effective for all parties involved. Still, with the varying  intricacies of the open source mode yet to be ingrained in the collective subconscious of the IT analyst community, it helps to assure the whole equation is being conceptualized and absorbed during the course of a briefing.

Technorati Tags: IT analysts |  open source software | briefings   

Unconferences and the dynamics of participation

After experiencing a lull in my posting habits over the past month or so, I'm going to ensure that my attendance this week at JavaOne 2007 will serve as occasion of resuming more frequent posts. Speaking of which, I've found myself impressed in more ways than one at the event that is this year's JavaOne and I've only been here a day and half at the writing of this post. The most important accomplishment thus far has been in translating the open, community-oriented atmosphere present in the Java development community into the nature and composition of the conference. As with anything there have been shortcomings, i.e. a schedule listing error which contributed to me missing the RedMonk Unconference at CommunityOne (a cotton-pickin' shame as it will probably turn out to be one of this year's conference highlights). However, up to the current moment I can attest to a solid approach to garnering a good mix of business, technology and opinion surrounding the Java ecosystem.

Along those lines, I happen to be a fan of the unconference when made available juxtapose to the traditional conference. I won't wax anarchist and suggest that they replace the stat quo approach, as they boast their own set of shortcomings. Plus, big conferences like JavaOne are still most efficient at serving as the proverbial cast of the fishnet into the ocean to attract the kinds of crowds that can make an unconference worthwhile. Their open, participation-driven makeup encourages a brand of bi-directional exchange and dialogue which is driving today's networked economy. Plus they help dissolve the rigid teacher/student, speaker/listener, sage/student roles that tend to kill learning environments in the first place.

Actually it would be great if briefings with industry analysts followed suite...once again I'm playing follower (this time a full two years later) to James' leader, but the point begs to be made again: the participation age is here in full effect. Where open, open, open is the rallying call for interactions (business, personal, social) of all shapes and sizes.

Technorati Tags: unconference |  open source software | participation age | industry analysis

PR blogging and the influence sphere

It dawned on me, after running across and scrolling through the Novell Open PR site, how valuable it is for PR operations to actively utilize blogs as an information distribution channel. I've had the pleasure of working with a fair share of talented PR firms who have a thorough knowledge of the business along with the contacts and connections to make things go. However, driven by the increasing effectiveness of the web as a communication platform, more independent individuals have been able to establish themselves as influencers. Currently, it has become imperative to reach as many of them with as much up-to-date information as possible.

In today's connected economy, your next client, contact or referral can come from just about anywhere. With that in mind I am firmly convinced that PR firms should begin view blogging as a highly effective manner of getting the ball rolling as it relates to disseminating news and information. Some companies already invite top bloggers to conferences and the like in hopes of leveraging their reach. I think that's a sharp move, but I also know that some of the same folks (plus others) can be reached by consistently stepping into their domain and allowing your voice to be heard.

For every briefing request/alert that comes Entiva's way through traditional methods (direct email from an associated party, dedicated news site, PR wire, etc.), there are probably three more companies, products, or projects that we follow a link to from someone's personal post, hear about informally from a contact/colleague or just plain stumble upon during traversals throughout the blogosphere. And check this out, 95% of the time that I discover a valuable tidbit it's courtesy of someone else who has nothing to gain directly from putting it out there. That says a lot considering coagulating information from disparate sources is part of what I do for a living.

The days where small, insulated groups of people controlled the flow of information for entire industries are dead and gone. The reality of today's situation is that it's critical to reach those who best reach others. Sometimes this entails going the Gartner route but mostly it's about reaching the edges of the influence sphere. From there things have a way of finding their way to the right persons in the right amount of time, with hardly any prohibitive overhead.

I know I don't have any qualms whatsoever about scraping RSS feeds from PR sources and I'm pretty sure others are in the same boat. Maybe it's time for more PR operations to step it up a notch and make this an option. Maybe not, but there's more to lose by not exploring the possibilities.

Technorati Tags: PR blogging |  blogosphere | Novell Open PR 

Open source and the numbers game

As a follow up (a day later than previously advertised...thanks to a bad strain of casserole) to my previous post, it is appropriate to investigate how the unique nature of open source software has created a void in the development of metrics for related companies, products and overall industry growth. Even more important is what can be done to fill the void, considering some of the specific requirements and constraints involved with doing so.

Before writing this post, I was reading a well done article on RoughlyDrafted which details some of the shortcomings of relying too heavily on market share statistics to gauge the impact of products. From the article:

Market share simply refers to the portion of a vendor’s unit sales compared to the overall market. However, most large markets include specialized niches that each act as a market. For example, within the overall market for vehicles are passenger cars, and buried within that major segment is the small but profitable luxury car market.

BMW doesn't compete against ship and plane builders, nor even the entire line of cars built by GM. It would therefore be absurd to talk about BMW's small share of the "vehicle market," or even to compare its market share among other car makers. It's simply pointless and irrelevant.

This is a valid point that is often overlooked by some industry analysts in an attempt to identify market leaders and strong performers. Without digging beneath the surface levels, it is easy to miss a great deal of the variances and dynamics that compose a given market. In the same breath, this approach fails to account for niche segments which can be quite substantial if the overall market is large enough. Meaning the conversation center less around big vs. small than it does generic vs. detailed, where the birds eye view approach is a bit too broad to compel competent and objective analysis.

Traditional numbers and open source
The emergence of open source is transforming the consensus understanding of the dynamics of both software development models and the business of software in general. Intertwined with this change is a need to formulate new methods for measurement and analysis. As a result, relying on traditional tools and approaches will continue to produce incomplete and vague coverage of the industry as a whole. This quandary affects all parties involved, everyone from open source companies to the industry analyst community to the user community depend on being able to quantify what all are experiencing first hand: namely, the significant paradigm shift that is open source.

A root cause is the fact that numbers such as product sales per quarter/per year or even customer wins can only begin to serve as diagnostics for the health and future prospects of open source technology. So while open source products can more or less be evaluated on a pure functional basis (using scorecards, feature matrices, etc.) in an identical manner as proprietary software. The nature of being in business as an open source vendor is that your product(s) can often be in use [legally] without resulting in a dime of revenue and without you being remotely aware of it. An essentially good possibility indeed, but one that has made it necessary to accurately track things like downloads and user registrations. All in the attempt to gain a better depiction of adoption rates, which demonstrate acceptance and serve as growth metrics. Consequently, the community component of an open source ecosystem must be included as an indicator equal in importance to more traditional ones.

However, monitoring the number of downloads and registrations is only a start. Just as the elements of a balance sheet attempt to provide a concise view of financial wellbeing and outlook, certain aspects of an open source community absolutely must be monitored. Granted, this requires a context switch which can only be made once the importance of community is fully grasped. Nonetheless, as time passes and some open source outfits prosper while others fade, the empirical evidence for the relationship between strong community and commercial success will be as evident as that of revenue and profitability.

Where it leads
In more ways than one, the added transparency and openness of open source models call for more evolved techniques which can gauge the condition of the resulting realities. In the same way that downloads might not mean much in the proprietary realm, a different set of activity areas are important within the open source universe. Despite the fact that good technology which meets a need will always win over the long haul and good software springs forth from both closed and open source beginnings. There will always be a need to distill strengths and weakness into a concise format. Graphs, charts, reports and the like, all exist to meet this need. Part of the reason for this: numbers don't lie. Even if they can be assuaged deceptively, they are and will continue to be inherently objective.

What begs to be investigated is what the other numbers are which matter as it relates to illustrating growth, progress and other key indicators for open source products and the companies behind them. OpenBRR already provides a method for evaluating the maturity of an open source product, in terms of adopting it. But what if I want to view product growth over the last three quarters I need to dig and find out as much as possible about that set of reliable determinants. Stats regarding version releases, bug reporting/resolution, code contribution and even the number of prominent issues voiced by users must be considered. The good news is that with open source all of these are publicly visible, the bad news is that they aren't actively being collected and integrated into the equation.

That being said, Entiva has its own process + toolset for doing the aforementioned and I would venture to guess that other analyst firms who are active in the open source landscape have their own. Still, it remains my perspective that more exchange across the entire spectrum needs to take place in order to sharpen and improve some of these current methods. Open dialogue will benefit everyone over the short and the long term. So if anyone wants to get a conversation started, just drop me a line.

Technorati Tags: market share |  open source software | analysis and measurement |  industry analyst community | commercial open source

Analysts influence commoditized?

As the entire world witnesses the effects of the Information Age, I think it is appropriate for the industry analyst community to ponder how the commoditization of information affects the influence of industry analysts. Lighthouse AR has some strong content over at Analyst Equity about varied aspects of the influence of industry analysts.

Personally I am curious about how the availability of information from a variety of both credible and not-so-credible sources (courtesy of the Internet) affect how industry analysts are used? I realize the Internet can't provide the type of market analysis, channel and marketing strategies and vertical market knowledge that analysts are capable of providing, but does the availability of a wealth of unstructured content weaken or strengthen the value of what it can't provide?

Since Entiva does not have quite the reach to conduct or own extensive CIO survey on this topic (we probably would decline to do so even if we did...it's outside of our focus area) I'm curious to hear what those across the blogosphere have to say about it.

The Industry Analyst as a Platform: Part II

This is the second part of a mini-series about the value of platforms within the analyst industry. In the first part I gave a background about the concept of running analyst operations the same way you would manage any type of platform (defined as an integrated coupling of services, frameworks, and interfaces, etc.). The driving force behind this idea is that the current state of affairs within the analyst community calls for serious change. As technology changes the pace at which, and the methods behind a great deal of what is done by analysts, it is necessary to change the approach to our duties to cope with these changes. My suggestion is to begin to organize and approach analyst operations as if they are platforms. By doing so, some of the issues faced by the community as a whole can be addressed implicitly. This piece is going to focus specifically on how to apply this concept in reality.

First of all, any changes that are suggested will only require an adjustment of perspective and conceptual modifications. No books need to be bought, new employees hired, nor any expensive consultations. Neither is this post a plug for any services offered by Entiva Group, as we aren't in the business of consulting other analyst firms. With that being said, assuming a platform centric view on the part of analyst firms will require them to fully embrace openness because platforms cannot thrive without it.

Take Google as an example, Google has built much more than a search engine, it has built a search platform to which third parties want to connect. Without having taken the platform approach Google would still probably be the number one search engine but would lack the many prospects for future growth that it is currently has. As the company expands into other areas each succeeding line of business will be added to the Google platform as another service. With the platform approach Google is given a great deal of flexibility in terms of direction, because when another service is offered it doesn't have to stand totally by itself, it can be pieced together with the rest of the platform.

The same thing can be done by analyst companies, whereby concentrating on packaging their offerings as members of their own service ecosystem would result in similar success on a different scale. Membership in the service ecosystem would entail defining some form of specifications, interfaces, and access parameters for each service. The specification and interface definitions would, most likely, be publicly published. Along those lines metadata could be attached to each type and could be marked up to provide a clear picture of different lines of business both internally and externally (an invaluable boost to business strategy).

The specification would simply provide a brief overview and the interface would show how to make use of a given service. This concept might not sound feasible within a non-programming environment, one where the services are not pure technical entities. However, what this accomplishes is it enforces an approach that prizes transparency (providing some kind of specification and interface definition). Not to mention one that creates an efficient manner of expressing different offerings in a continuous manner.

Since the goal of a platform is to provide a steady stream of quality services in order to attract others to plug into it, this would also become the goal of the analyst company with the platform as its driver. In other words, the main focus becomes making sure that it is easy to actually understand what each company does and how it is being exposed to outsiders. If one company offers research trend analysis, also provided should be a definition of the service and how it can be accessed and used (If the service is being provided at reduced price that should be listed, if it is free then that too should be made clear). The concept might seem awkward initially but after a while it becomes evident that by doing some form of what is being discussed, industry analyst will go a ways toward remedying several issues facing our line of work.

An additional benefit of taking a platform-centric approach is that it has the potential to aid the important role that analysts are positioned to play in the coming future. Analysts are individuals who make their living handling information: interpreting it, maintaining it, compiling it into different forms, etc. This role is particularly important in global, information based economy. However, at the same time there is an expectation of increased levels of accountability & credibility from the same analyst community. The adoption of a platform-centric outlook will better prepare companies for meeting those expectations by creating outward focused enterprises who are looking to bring and express value over an open landscape.

 

 

The Industry Analyst as a Platform: Part I

Last night, I was talking with a friend of mine who does software engineering at a Fortune 50 company when the topic of the recent emergence of the concept of the Web as a platform came up.  We both agreed that most topics, publications and discussions related to this subject (also referred to as overly billed Web 2.0) consisted of a lot of speculation, a great deal of bandwagon jumping, a healthy dose of hype. But we also breached the subject of why the concept of using the web as a platform is so enticing and at the same time potentially revolutionary. The reasons we kicked around centered around the ever increasing ubiquity of internet access, the openess of its protocols, a low barrier of entry, the creation of an enhanced concept of connectivity/collaboration, and the ability to essentially plug-and-play using existing infrastructure.

While discussing the last two reasons, the gears started turning in my head and I started thinking about how platforms are all about exposing exisiting infrastructure towards the goal of basically encouraging others to use the platform. This is what the Web has done so well: provided an infrastructure upon which value can be built.

I then made the connection between some of the other issues I've observed within the analyst industry. These issues are, namely: the lack of exchange and collaboration, the need for transparency and the lack of fluidity between people, companies and organizations that it most benefits to be connected. In today's age where technology is moving faster than any one person or company can stay up to speed with, sharing and exchange is critical.  Open source software and the blogosphere have shown the power of the 'group mind.' It is time the analyst industry join the party and begin to really embrace the reality that transparency, collaboration and open exchange pay big time dividends.

The best way to allow this to happen naturally is to change from the inside out, starting with the way that industry analyst companies view their operations. In order for the very companies who seem to most need to learn the value of transparency and exchange they must begin to view themselves as platforms. As platforms each is capable of offering (exposing) services to customers, partners, the general public. Just like the Web does, each platform would provide the means on top of which added value is created, because at the end of the day its success is measured by how integral a platform becomes to others around it.

Taking this approach analyst companies would begin to look for new and improved ways to package what they have to offer so that it can be exposed to the outside world. All of the sudden, experience, domain specific knowledge, etc. would go from being viewed as a protected asset to being a potential value aggregator. For example, without the web I wouldn't have a blog and this very entry that I am writing would probably still exist in my head but would only generate value so far as I could share and exchange it with others in some form. The same can be said for industry analysis, the more exposure the more value.

The more analysts embrace an open attitude about our work the more we benefit. Not because of some altruistic ideal, but because opening up enables us to better solicit assistance, formalize ideas, and stay current with external issues that affect our work. Think about the benefits of exchanging notes about companies and products that are being covered by other analysts/analyst firms. Would this type of collaboration really threaten each participating party’s revenue stream or competitive advantages? No. However, the benefits would be outstanding by comparison: being able to integrate colleagues’ views and information with your own and gain a better view of the industry wide outlook regarding a particular subject. Granted this type of exchange is already taking place, but considering the connected reach of the Internet it should be occurring at an exponential rate.

The key concept of any platform is the services that it offers. For example, the TypePad platform offers services related to the creation and maintenance of online web blogs. Users are presented with tools that enable them to interact with their web blogs through authoring, design, and control mechanisms. However, TypePad also realizes that it isn’t the only game in town when it comes to offering access to the blogosphere, so it builds collaboration into its offering(s).  TypePad makes it easy for you to weave related topics across other blogs together using standards like RSS. If industry analysts began conduct business in a like manner, it would help address the very issues that currently plague us.

Embracing the concept of industry analysts as platforms will highlight the need to continually look to connect with outside parties in a transparent, standardized manner. Instead of viewing customers solely as a source of revenue they become vital components that contribute the life of the platform. Competitors are turned into participants within the service ecosystem that each platform controls. Transparency becomes necessary in order to attract others to the platform, instead of a ‘byword’ that gets thrown around in blogs like this one. In other words, progress is made. 

The next part of this series is going to focus on how the practical applications of the concept of platforms within the analyst industry. 

Why open standards are just as important as open source

I ran across an interesting post about open standards earlier this week that brought up some interesting points that are typically ignored in the fervor to push wide spread open source adoption. One thing that really can't be disputed is that open standards are the future no matter the course of destiny for the open source software community. But in a related twist, open standards will make it easier for open source to thrive as it will give customers the option of switching when open source offers a better value proposition.

A hypothetical example would be if Microsoft Office already supported the Open Document Format (ODF) how many more Office customers would have already made the switch to OpenOffice seeing how their prior investment in Office wasn't locked away in a proprietary format but was instead already in an open format? The answer is...a great many. But the point of open standards isn't to push open source adoption, but to provide choice. What if a customer decides to use an open source application but 4 years down the line wants to move to a competing proprietary app. If both supported open standards the switch would involve licensing and cost issues not complicated interoperability conflicts.

However, this sort of flexibility to switch obviously benefits OSS because at the current moment most proposed changes involve going from proprietary to open source alternatives. The point being, open standards should be pushed hand in hand with Linux and JBoss and any other open source alternative available. The open source community should be just as zealous about ODF as they are about OpenOffice, because the more acceptance ODF gains the more attractive OpenOffice will become.

Perhaps the first step that the OSS community can take is to begin the process of building software with open standards in mind. Even if it means working with the necessary bodies in order to have a given standard created and keeping the process of change open to willing participants. I know the folks over at JXTA have published their protocols and submitted them for standardization by the IETF. Similar efforts wouldn't be wasted as they make software more attractive to both users and integrators who wish to tie in third party offerings. Overall, the inclusion of open standards only increases value, even if it requires more upfront time and effort on the part of the creator(s)/owner(s).

Look at how the open source J2EE arena has leveraged the partially open J2EE standards. By creating quality code that adheres to/implements the J2EE API's everything from application servers to messaging frameworks to business intelligence layers have been able to offer themselves as viable alternatives to proprietary options. If other parts of the OSS community began to fully embrace open standards, they could make even more impressive inroads.

And of course the initial counter is that there is no motivating factor for establishing/adhering to open standards like there is for writing the software itself. Which in a sense is true, only because the value of open standards for open source software can't be fully demonstrated until they are accepted by larger portions of the community. So the question becomes, who is prepared to take the first steps towards finding out?