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| Venture capital firms are pouring money into open source companies,
| according to IBM Corp.'s Deborah Magid, director of strategic alliances
| and Venture Capital Group.
|
| After a 30 minute chat with Magid, she follows up in an e-mail with
| some stats. Total venture capital investments in 2005 reached $22.1
| billion of which IT took $11.9 billion. Forty five percent was
| invested in software, and $190 million of the software investment
| was in "pure open source companies."
|
| Magid defines "pure open source companies" as those with an open
| source business model, not just ones using open source in some way.
|
| Microsoft Corp. also has begun to pour money into advertising to
| defuse hype, in part, related to open source as it gets ready to
| release Vista operating system later this year.
|
| Reports from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, ECommerce Times and
| others herald Microsoft's decision to sink $500,000 (Correction:
| should be 0.5 billion) into an advertising campaign to keep
| control of the desktop.
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