The VAR Guy

Cha-ching. That’s the noise open source companies hope to hear as they launch new point-of-sale solutions for VARs and retail customers. But can open source POS systems compete with traditional, popular options from Dell, Microsoft, IBM, NCR and others?

This could have been a huge week for the open source industry to cash in on the retail industry. Instead it’s a missed opportunity. Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and other traditional software companies are making big news at a major New York event for retail CIOs, but open source application providers like OpenBravo are largely silent. Big mistake. Here’s a closer look at the situation.

The VAR Guy spent most of 2007 blogging about open source start-ups and open source business models. As he looks ahead to 2008, The VAR Guy knows hundreds of open source software providers are seeking to catch on in the corporate market. Here are the top 10 open source providers and platforms that are set to succeed in 2008.

A few years back, some proprietary hardware companies hit the panic button when Dell and Microsoft Windows moved into point-of-sale (POS) systems. Fast forward to the present, and open source is trying its hand at disrupting the POS market. You already know about Linux running on POS systems. Now, POS applications themselves are going open source. Here’s how.