Until recently, few enterprises were using open source software for back office applications, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). But last month, an IDC survey of Western European companies found that nearly ten percent were using open source enterprise software. That's surprisingly high for a market where the industry leaders themselves have only a ten percent share. IDC also reported that the leading open source enterprise applications are growing – by 20 percent or more per year.
10gen is a new platform-as-a-service technology designed to help developers quickly and easily build dynamic, scalable, mission critical web sites and applications.
The 10gen software stack is analogous to Google App Engine in that it provides a new stack of tools (database, grid management, application server) that are purpose-built to run in a cloud environment.
Substitute a standard web services interface for a speaking tube, a business rules management system for his encyclopedic knowledge of policies and regulations, data mining or predictive analytics for his customer knowledge and adaptive control for his experimentation and you have Decision Management. The Answerer but on an industrial scale.
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