Open source's biggest services gun?

When you think professional services and open-source, odds are the name "Unisys" doesn't come to mind. Infoworld reports that Unisys has begun rebranding itself and retooling its business model to take advantage of OSS. What's next: a Sperry-Univac deal with Zend?

Bet you didn't think "Unisys" when you read that subject line, but it's true... Julie Giera of Forrester has an interesting report on Unisys' open source services. The report deals primarily with Unisys, but also has interesting things to say about the larger open source services market...: ...Unisys has announced a set of service offerings, called OASIS, for companies with open source platforms. It is the first time that a major IT service provider has offered a fully integrated set of services - including installation, configuration, maintenance, and enhancement - for a predefined open source stack. Competitors like HP and IBM have long had a menu of open source services that customers could choose from, but they have been reluctant to put a stake in the ground around a specific set of open source components. The OASIS announcement is an early indication that the open source services market is starting to mature. Through the OASIS offerings, open source customers can expect to achieve some of the same benefits as commercial software customers - predictability, cost savings, and strong service-level guarantees. With the OASIS set of services offerings, Forrester believes that Unisys should be on the shortlist of vendors for open source services.

Infoworld: Open source's biggest services gun?