Software vendors like to talk about innovation. They usually mention their R&D budget as a proof of their commitment to creating new exciting technologies. However, the truth is that most large companies are turning to A&D (Acquisition and Development) strategies to quickly incorporate new ideas into their products. Buying startups that have developed new ideas and proved their value at a small scale in the market seems to be cheaper than maintaining large labs which produce inconsistent results.
However, even with shrinking research funds, large companies have been able to set the pace of technological innovation. In the enterprise for example, it is hard to believe that the Web Services revolution could have occurred without the large investments made by companies like IBM and Microsoft. The same goes for BPM (Business Process Management). Something similar happens on the desktop, where most innovations seem to come from Apple and to a lesser degree Adobe and other smaller companies.
So, where is the innovation within the open-source movement? The truth is that I do not really see it. The engineers that work on open-source projects seem to focus on doing things faster, better and cheaper (with mixed results). That is great but I would like to see more innovation. Take for example the just released Firefox 2. Take a look at the new features offered in this release. You will find new exciting features such as Inline spell checking, RSS support and much more. Not excited? You are not alone. Most of these features are already available elsewhere. If you want real innovation in browser technologies you better look at companies such as Flock, OmniGroup or Opera.
Do not get me wrong. I love open-source software. I am an avid Firefox user as well as an Apache Foundation fan when it comes to looking for solid Java or C APIs for my applications. However, I really believe that if the open-source movement really wants to take over commercial software companies it needs an improved value proposition. Faster, better and cheaper is good, but it is innovation that get people excited.