Enterprise open-source software accounts for 29% of all software in use today, and experts predict it will make up 34% by 2024. As this program category grows, here are 20 companies developing it to keep an eye on in 2023.

For more information, also see: Open Source Software: Top Sites

1. Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of tech’s “Big Five” and a leader in the cloud computing industry, but it’s also a significant contributor to open-source software. The tech giant’s employees have spearheaded over 1,200 projects on GitHub. Many of AWS’s most popular tools and services are also based on open-source projects.

Product Portfolio

One of AWS’s most popular open-source products is its Cloud Development Kit (CDK). AWS CDK lets users build custom cloud applications using familiar programming languages and preconfigured components, aiding faster development.

AWS also has a suite of other services based on popular open-source projects, like the Linux-based Bottlerocket OS and its Elastic Kubernetes Service. Other products of note include Firecracker, OpenSearch and AWS Amplify, all of which help build and manage websites or other cloud applications.

2. The Apache Software Foundation

AWS is a noteworthy corporate open-source contributor, but many leaders in this area are non-profit organizations. The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) — the world’s largest open-source foundation — is a prime example. ASF includes tens of thousands of members, but the organization itself is responsible for more than 350 open-source projects.

Product Portfolio

Apache Spark is one of ASF’s most popular releases. The multi-language data processing tool is a staple for data science and machine-learning processes seeing use everywhere from NASA to eBay. ASF is also responsible for Hadoop, a big data software library, Kafka, which powers real-time data applications like Uber’s driver matching, and CloudStack, a virtual machine deployment platform.

3. Box

Box is a newer but still noteworthy open-source software producer. The cloud services company specializes in security and workflow efficiency, with customers ranging from the U.S. Air Force to Morgan Stanley. As an open-source developer, Box has released more than a dozen open programs and software development kits.

Product Portfolio

Among Box’s most impressive open-source contributions is Spout, a PHP library that can read and write large CSV and XLSX files while keeping memory usage below 10 megabytes. Box also offers many plugins and prebuilt UI components to use on its platform. These features make the Box environment easier to use and configure to specific use cases, fueling its popularity among many audiences.

4. Builder.io

Another relative newcomer to the open-source software space is Builder.io. Builder is a visual content management system offering drag-and-drop functionality and API-based infrastructure to integrate with other apps. In addition to its central platform, the company has released five open-source projects and 52 repositories.

Product Portfolio

The Builder.io platform is closed-source, but its built-in components like images, text, and columns are open. Its developer tools are also open-source. Builder’s offerings include Qwik, a framework for building instant-on apps, Partytown, which relocates resource-intensive scripts to improve performance, and Mitosis, a universal components compiler.

5. Cloud Native Computing Foundation

Many people associate open-source software with smaller companies like Builder and Box, but large developers like the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) account for a considerable portion of the industry. CNCF focuses on cloud computing apps and resources, with more than 150 projects and 187,000 contributors to its name.

Product Portfolio

CNCF’s most recognizable project is Kubernetes. The container orchestration system sees use in 61% of global organizations today and has quickly become an unofficial standard for containerization.

The Foundation also manages Prometheus, a data monitoring and visualization platform, Argo, a Kubernetes-based continuous integration and delivery engine, and Rook, a cloud-native storage solution. Dozens more projects populate CNCF’s portfolio across various stages of development.

6. Databricks

Databricks is a smaller but fast-growing open-source software company to watch in 2023. The organization centers around what it calls a “Lakehouse Platform,” which combines aspects of a data warehouse and a data lake. The platform has seen use from the likes of the FDA and AT&T, and more importantly for this list, is based on open software and standards.

Product Portfolio

The Lakehouse Platform itself is open-source, as are its first-party plugins. Chief among these is Delta Lake, an open-format storage layer that lets you build a lakehouse architecture over existing storage systems like AWS S3.

Another open-source project — Delta Sharing — claims to be the first open protocol for secure data sharing. This lets Delta Lake users or other cloud adopters transfer and share files between platforms without jeopardizing security.

7. Docker

Docker is one of the most familiar names in open-source software for many developers. The container-based platform-as-a-service ranked as the most beloved tool in Stack Overflow’s 2022 Developer Survey. It introduced what’s now the standard for containerization and remains a leading software development platform.

Product Portfolio

Docker’s primary platform — the Docker Engine — is open-source. The engine uses APIs to help users build and containerize applications and comes in several packages, ranging from personal use to enterprise-level platforms.

In addition to its main engine, Docker also offers at least 12 other open-source projects with multiple Docker-adjacent features. Compose helps run multi-container apps, and Moby provides specialized tools to streamline the assembly of unique containerized applications.

8. Google

As another one of tech’s Big Five, Google needs no introduction in most circles. What most web users may not realize, however, is that the search giant is one of the most significant contributors to open-source software. It was the original developer of Kubernetes before the CNCF took over and is responsible for Android, the world’s most popular mobile operating system, which is also open-source.

Product Portfolio

Android is Google’s most recognizable open-source project, but it’s far from the only one. Chromium — the browser technology powering Google Chrome — is also open-source, as is Chromium OS, Google’s web-based operating system. Google has also developed Go, an increasingly popular programming language, and TensorFlow, an open machine learning platform.

9. H2O.ai

While TensorFlow may have Google’s name recognition behind it, it’s not the only open-source machine learning platform. Another one to note for 2023 is H2O.ai, which boasts more than 18,000 organizations as its customers. The platform supports multiple programming languages and offers several automation features to democratize and streamline machine learning development.

Product Portfolio

The company’s base product — H2O — is far from the only open-source project in its portfolio. H2O also develops Sparkling Water, an Apache Spark plugin for H2O, Driverless AI, which automates steps like model building, and H2O Wave, which offers real-time dashboards and web apps for AI developers.

10. HashiCorp

HashiCorp is another wholly open-source-focused organization. The company — which develops cloud computing tools — has committed to keeping its core technologies open. That model is paying off, as HashiCorp sees more than 250 million open-source downloads annually.

Product Portfolio

HashiCorp offers eight open-source tools today — Packer, Vagrant, Terraform, Consul, Boundary, Vault, Nomad, and Waypoint. Packer and Terraform automate cloud infrastructure building and management projects, while Nomad, Waypoint, and Vagrant focus on cloud app development and implementation. Vault and Boundary provide security controls, and Consul automates service networking across multiple cloud environments.

11. IBM

IBM is one of the longest-standing companies in the technology industry, and it’s been a leader in open-source software for a similarly lengthy stretch. The corporation has more than 25 years of experience developing open tools and over than 3,000 employees actively contributing to these projects.

Product Portfolio

As such a large organization, IBM has an impressive suite of open-source software products. One of the most notable is Machine Learning Exchange, which offers free, deployable deep learning models, democratizing IBM’s leadership in the machine learning space.

Other IBM open-source projects include Incident Accuracy Reporting System, which automates police incident reporting processes, and Data Asset eXchange, where enterprise users share data science libraries and tools.

12. Intel

Intel is another recognizable corporate name with significant open-source contributions. While you likely know the company as a chip developer, Intel’s hundreds of open-source projects cover various applications, from AI development to Internet of Things management.

Product Portfolio

Intel’s most popular open-source product is Open Federated Learning, a Python-based software development framework popular among data scientists and game developers. Another widely adopted project is QEMU, a machine virtualization platform. Intel also produces many Linux tools, including the Linux kernel at the heart of many Chromebooks, and specialized security systems for the OS.

13. Microsoft

Despite building its name on proprietary software, Microsoft is the largest contributor to open-source projects in the world. The company extensively uses open tools in its development, and its massive range of company-and-employee-made open products covers multiple use cases.

Product Portfolio

One of Microsoft’s most significant open-source projects is Azure SDK, a set of libraries to help developers leverage the Azure cloud product suite. Accessibility Insights is a similar tool, providing monitoring and checking features to find and fix accessibility issues in Windows, Android, and web apps.

Other noteworthy projects include Kubernetes Event-driven Autoscaling, an application autoscaling tool for Kubernetes, and Open Education Analytics, which aids collaboration between educational organizations for data and AI projects.

14. Meta

Another household name, Meta is likewise a considerable contributor to open-source software. Facebook and Instagram — the products Meta is most well-known for — are closed, but the technology titan has more than 600 open-source projects available today.

Product Portfolio

PyTorch is Meta’s leading open product. This machine-learning framework builds on the Torch library and offers a user-friendly way to develop and train intelligent models, including frictionless cloud development and scaling.

Meta also develops React, a Java library for building UIs, and Docusaurus, which simplifies the website development and optimization process. As you might expect from Meta’s virtual reality products like the Quest, the company also produces open VR projects, including image synthesis and physics tools.

15. Oracle

Oracle is another software giant with many open-source projects under its belt. While the company’s commercial offerings focus on cloud computing apps and infrastructure, its open-source tools cover a wider range of applications. On top of creating its own components, the organization’s employees contribute to Linux and Kubernetes, among other popular open-source projects.

Product Portfolio

The most notable entry in Oracle’s open-source portfolio is Java. Java is one of the best programming languages for beginners, thanks to its extensive use, relative simplicity, and large support community. Oracle also runs a library of images and configurations for Docker, as well as a Linux distro, the popular MySQL database, and Tribuo, which helps develop machine learning models in Java.

16. OpenAI

OpenAI may have a different history and industry experience than corporations like Oracle and Microsoft, but it has skyrocketed into notoriety. The AI developer is behind ChatGPT and Dall-E, which more than 3 million users today apply to their workflows and projects. While not every tool from OpenAI is open-source, several of its underlying technologies are.

Product Portfolio

GPT-3 — the underlying natural language processing model behind ChatGPT — is OpenAI’s most notable open-source contribution. The tool can manage generative text tasks, summarization, text parsing, and translation. Another open-source product worth noting from OpenAI is Point-E. Point-E generates 3D models from text, helping streamline illustration and virtual model development.

17. Red Hat

Red Hat has been a leader in open-source software for years, and that won’t likely change in 2023. The largest open-source software company in the world specializes in cloud computing tools, though it also has many Linux and Kubernetes technologies.

Product Portfolio

All of Red Hat’s products are open-source, setting it apart from many groups on this list that also produce closed commercial tools. Ansible is one of the most significant of these, a platform for automating IT tasks to support DevOps. Other projects of note include the Red Hat OpenStack Platform, which virtualizes hardware and organizes these packages in the cloud, and OpenShift, an enterprise-ready, heavily automated Kubernetes platform.

18. SAP

SAP is another familiar name in software that’s started to lean toward open-source development in the past few years. The enterprise application organization focuses on management and business intelligence products, though its open-source projects focus on app and cloud development. In 2022, SAP ranked among the top 10 commercial contributors to open-source software, cementing its status in this list.

Product Portfolio

SAP has six lead open-source projects, including Gardener, an enterprise-level Kubernetes service management tool, and OpenUI5, which uses open standards to streamline web app development. SAP also contributes to popular open-source projects outside its organization, like Linux, Apache, and OpenJDK.

19. Strata IO

Strata Identity Orchestration (IO) is one of the newest companies on this list, completing its Series B funding in 2023, but it’s already making considerable waves. The company’s primary product — the Maverics IO Platform — secures app identity controls in cloud environments and is closed, but the underlying technology is open.

Product Portfolio

Strata IO’s most significant open-source contribution is the Identity Query Language (IDQL) Standard. IDQL is an open standard for identity access policies, making creating and managing identity and access management (IAM) tools easier. A related open-source project — Hexa — translates proprietary IAM policy standards into IDQL to let multiple IAM systems run together in a single environment.

20. VMware

A highly recognized name for many, VMware has solidified its place in tech through cloud computing services and virtualization tools. The organization is also a member of the Linux Foundation, the CNCF, and OpenSFF, all of which it regularly contributes to in addition to developing its open-source projects.

Product Portfolio

Spring is one of VMware’s most popular open-source products. Thanks to its simplicity and emphasis on making Java development faster and safer, it’s the world’s most widely used Java framework. VMware also develops Herald, which supports Bluetooth applications across multiple devices, Harbor, a container image registry, and RabbitMQ, which consolidates numerous messaging protocols to enable easier messaging app development.

What Does Open Source Mean?

Open-source software differs from proprietary software because its source code is freely available for use, modification, and sharing. Only the original developer can change the program with traditional software, but anyone can adapt and contribute to open-source solutions.

Because open-source software can take advantage of a wider pool of resources and developers, this model can streamline development, and help overcome bugs and security issues. However, many companies opt for the closed model to make it easier to monetize their products.

How Many Software Companies Are Open Source?

Not every software company develops open-source software, but almost all use it. Roughly 90% of companies use open-source software, and 30% of Fortune 100 companies have dedicated open-source development offices, according to GitHub.

Virtually every software business uses open-source tools to some extent in developing their products, and many have employees who regularly contribute to open-source projects. While many of these companies’ final products remain closed, this list of open-source-contributing organizations highlights a growing shift toward open development.

Bottom Line: Top Open Source Companies

With so many tech organizations engaging in open-source software today, it can be challenging to say which is the best. These 20 organizations are by no means a complete list but represent leaders in the open-source space, either by the sheer number of their open products or the significance of these tools. As 2023 goes on, these open source companies will be the ones to watch.

This list of open source sites includes several categories – each of which will be of interest to open source software users. 

The “project hosting” category includes giants who provide server space for open source code and allow downloads. The “directories” category includes sites that have created lists of open source projects. The “best open source lists” sites have made a list of great open source software. And sites that didn’t fall neatly into one of these categories landed in the “miscellaneous” group at the end. 

Best Open Source Sites

• Project Hosting Sites
  
• Open Source Directory
  
• Open Source Software Collections
  
• Best-Of Open Source Lists
• Miscellaneous Open Source
  
• Bottom Line: Open Source Software List

Project Hosting Sites

Open source project hosting sites help businesses start projects for their companies or a blog. Here are 13 of the top open source project hosting sites:

SourceForge

The “mother lode” for open source projects, SourceForge hosts nearly thousands and thousands of projects. It serves more than 2 million downloads a day and includes apps and tools in a wide variety of categories.

GitHub

GitHub hosts both public and private projects that use the open source Git version control system. This “social coding” site currently hosts more than 1.7 million repositories, including many open source projects.

BitBucket

Like GitHub, BitBucket hosts both public and private projects. On this site, open source projects and private projects with fewer than five users are free. It hosts more than 48,000 repositories, many of which are searchable on the site.

LaunchPad

Maintained by Canonical, LaunchPad is particularly targeted at projects that run on Ubuntu. It provides hosting for more than 21,000 projects that use the Bazaar version control system.

Savannah—GNU

Savannah describes itself as “a central point for development, maintenance and distribution of official GNU software.” It hosts many official GNU projects.

Savannah—non-GNU

In addition to the official GNU project site, Savannah also offers to host free software that isn’t part of GNU. It currently has more than thousands of projects in this category.

Gna!

If you’ve visited either of the Savannah projects, Gna! will feel very familiar as it uses the same software and also focuses on GNU-related projects.

OSOR

Short for “Open Source Observatory and Repository,” OSOR is a European Union site for open source projects that can be used in public administrations. It currently hosts hundreds of projects and links to nearly thousands more, and the site also contains helpful research and news related to free and open source software.

Google Cloud Source Repositories

Google Cloud Source Repositories searches across multiple projects, files, and repositories to quickly review and debug code in a company’s projects. Google Cloud Source Repositories allow customers to access private Git repositories. Companies can also create unlimited private Git repositories to host and maintain their code.

AWS CodeCommit

AWS CodeCommit creates 1,000 repositories by default and can generate up to 25,000 additional repositories if needed for company growth. Workflows can be implemented including code reviews and feedback, and control who can make changes in the company. AWS CodeCommit allows companies to keep using their preferred plugins, continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) systems, and their clients.

Apache Allura

Apache Allura is an open source implementation of software collaboration and community that manages source code repositories, bug reports, discussions, wiki pages, blogs, and individual projects. 

Codeberg

Codeberg is an open source collaboration platform that has Git hosting for free and information on open source software, content, and projects. Codeberg is a nonprofit company, solely based on the users who give advice and information to other customers. Codeberg ensures that user data is not tracked data, sold data, or given third-party cookies to its users.

Beanstalk

With the open source company Beanstalk, a company can add files, create branches, and edit directly in the browser. The company’s information can be seen by the entire team, if a company wants, to keep employees on the same page with notifications, email digests, compare views, and a detailed history of commits and files. Each deployment environment can ship code to one or many servers for scalability in their infrastructures, handling infrastructures within any application.

For more information, also see: Best Open Source Software List

Open Source Directories

Open source directory sites help businesses collect the most promising open source software available online.

Here are 13 of the top open source directories sites:

Freshmeat

Owned by the same company that owns SourceForge, Freshmeat boasts “the Web’s largest index of Unix and cross-platform software.” Note that while most of the applications listed on the site are open source, not all of them are.

osalt.com

This site aims to provide end users with open source alternatives to well-known commercial software. This directory isn’t as exhaustive as some, but the way it’s formatted makes it easily accessible to open source newbies.

OSTATIC

Sponsored by GigaOm, this site provides information and ratings about more than 150,000 open source projects. It includes a helpful “alternatives” tab, which makes it easy to find and compare similar open source projects.

OS Living

This site aims to collect “the Web’s best open source software” in its archive. In addition to a keyword search tool, it also allows users to search by category, making it easy to find the type of software you’re looking for.

Free Software Directory

This site is maintained by the Free Software Foundation (the owners of the GNU project) and the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In addition to a large library of software links, it also includes a lot of information about the philosophy behind open source software.

Open Source Software Directory

Like several others in this category, this site also attempts to filter out the “best” of open source software. It doesn’t provide a lot of data about each application—instead, it primarily provides ratings and links to the project’s Web sites.

The LOOP List

The Ubuntu site includes this helpful list of open source software that runs on Windows. It can be edited by anyone, but it’s limited to the three “best” open source applications for any given category.

Java-Source.net

This bare-bones site features nothing but a directory of Java-based open source projects. It’s particularly strong on developer tools.

Black Duck Open Hub

Synopsys’s Black Duck Open Hub teams have improved security, development, and legal teams around the world to strengthen their security and compliance programs. Black Duck Software composition analysis (SCA) allows organizations to identify and track open source code and integrate open source policy enforcement across existing development environments. 

Libraries.io

Libraries.io helps companies find new open source packages, modules, and frameworks to match a company’s needs, and keep track of the ones where businesses want visibility. Libraries.io offers around 6.28M packages by license, language, or keyword. Libraries.io encourages the use of data provided in a company’s applications, services, or research.

AlternativeTo

AlternativeTo is a free open source service that helps a company find alternatives to the products a company likes or does not. Their site is made from contributors from all over the world. The alternatives are crowd-sourced, so a company can see what best fits their needs.

Advanced Classifieds & Directory Pro (ACADP)

Advanced Classifieds & Directory Pro (ACADP) is a professional and high-quality directory plugin on WordPress that can help create any kind of directory site. ACADP enables companies to organize their categories and subcategories. ACADP gives their users an unlimited amount of custom fields to help a company with any changes in scalability.

Connections Business Directory

Connections Business Directory is another business directory plugin for WordPress. It has a simple design and function with simplicity in design and function with features and versatility. Connections Business Directory can create an address book, maintain a staff directory, and run a business directory. 

Open Source Software Collections

Open source software collections help businesses find projects and have a large number of open source projects that companies can use with a single download. 

Here are 11 of the top open source software collection sites:

PortableApps.com

Windows users can take some of the best open source apps with them on a portable thumb drive when they download this collection. You can also download portable versions of each included app separately.

winPenPack

From this site, you can download five different collections of open source apps for Windows—2GB, Essential, Game, School, and Web—each of which fits onto a portable thumb drive. The site also contains links to each of the individual apps included.

OSDN 

OSDN grows with open source software development and its uses such as open source projects, source code repositories, website hosting features, a ticket system, web forums, and mailing lists, to give businesses a well-integrated and easy-to-use environment. OSDN provides companies with a file environment for flexible uploads.

Internet Archive

Open source internet (OSI) was formed to be an educational and advocate of the important moment in the history of collaborative development. Internet Archive is known as one of the first open source sites.

FossHub

FossHub is an open source collections site and platform where companies can download for free many free and secure software titles. FossHub aims to offer a company “a clean website look, easy navigation, only a single ad to help us pay our bills, and no software bundles, adware or anything that can be identified as malware.”

F-Droid

F-Droid is an installable list of free and open source software (FOSS) applications for the Android platform. F-Droid aims to make it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates.

Open Source Software Directory (OSSD)

Open Source Software Directory (OSSD) collects accurate open source and free software on their site. Their focus is on small and medium businesses, software developers, and system administrators.

DownloadCrew

DownloadCrew is an open source collections site that offers users the best applications for their company. Downloadcrew aims to do the work for their users and gives users apps that they believe the company would benefit from. DownloadCrew can download, install, test, and review each application to ensure all products are safe and to industry standards.

Softpedia

Softpedia is an open source collections site of free software programs for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, games and gaming tools, Windows device drivers, mobile devices, and IT-related articles. Softpedia goes through the open source software options, then reviews and categorizes these products to offer users the exact product they need.

Linux-Apps

Linux-apps aim to grow and advance free and open source software content. Linux-apps use all libre software for their services while using the platform is completely free.

OSINT Framework

OSINT’s open source framework is focused on gathering and supplying information from free tools or software. Even if sites might include registration or only give more data at a cost, OSINT guarantees that their users should be able to use some of the information with little to no cost. 

See more: Top Open Source Companies 

Best-Of Open Source Lists

Best-of open source lists are rated as accurate and helpful open source lists. Here are 14 of the best-of open source sites:

Datamation

Datamation publishes “best of” lists for various categories of open source software every couple of weeks or so. Enter “open source software” in the search bar to find some of the most recent.

Open Source Windows

This page offers short, simple descriptions of some of the most well-known open source apps for Windows, with links to each.

Open Source Mac

A slightly longer list that follows the same format as “Open Source Windows”—only highlighting open source apps that work on OS X

OpenLogic

OpenLogic supports open source software which can be helpful for a positive company’s impact. OpenLogic by Perforce also provides the technical support a company needs to succeed with open source tools. OpenLogic aims to give their customers technical support and professional services built for the enterprise.

VMware Open Source Blog

VMware is a top software company, and their Open Source Blog is a strong and helpful open source tool. VMware does not only recommend what they do, but they are extremely open to the community and what they wish to share.

Instaclustr

Instaclustr aims to help organizations get applications at scale for their business by operating and supporting their data through its SaaS platform for open source technologies.

Open Source Initiative

Open Source Initiative was formed in the late 1990s to be an educational and advocate of an important moment for open source tools in the history of collaborative development. 

Percona Community

Percona is a top open source database software that offers support and services for MySQL, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL databases in on-premises and cloud environments. They are “dedicated to helping make your databases and applications run better through a unique combination of expertise and open source software.”

Swagger

Swagger is an open source software and provides tools for their users. Swagger helps users to develop their APIs with support from Open API, AsyncAPI, JSON Schema, and more.

Maltego

Maltego is an open source intelligence and analysis tool for gathering information that is best for their users. Maltego aims to help users worldwide through easy data integration in a single interface. They provide many forms of information including podcasts, books, apps, and more.

Shodan

Shodan is an open source directory that lets users share their questions with the community. Shodan does not store or share users’ search queries. Shodan users share the questions in the search directory to help the community if they have the same questions.

Kali Linux

Kali Linux is an open source distribution system with several hundred tools aimed at cybersecurity functions. It provides common tools, configurations, and automation that allows users to focus on the task that needs to be completed.

Hacker Target

Hacker Target is an open source information-gathering tool that contains a reference guide. In addition to the site, there is also the option to ask questions about the tools through their API, and Maltego can be used as a Chrome extension.

Searchcode

The open source tool, Searchcode, allows users to search for any topic or product they need to find for their business. Searchcode makes it easy to search as well, highlighting lines of searches and filtering down using the filter panel.

Miscellaneous Open Source

The listed open source sites use other types of open sources for reference. Here are eight miscellaneous open source sites:

Wikipedia

The free and open source community has contributed heavily to the free encyclopedia, and as a result, Wikipedia has a wealth of articles with good information on open source software. The link above has an extensive list of open source projects with articles on Wikipedia. From these articles, you can usually link to the project site or a download page.

Apache Software Foundation

The Apache Software Foundation currently sponsors nearly 100 enterprise-grade open source projects listed on this site. Many Apache projects, including the well-known HTTP Server, relate to Web-based technologies.

KDE

In addition to the well-known desktop environment for Linux, the KDE community has created many different types of applications, many of which run on multiple platforms. The link here will take you to the big list of KDE applications.

NASA

The space agency has released the code for several pieces of software its engineers have created. Not surprisingly, several are related to science and space exploration, but many others would be of interest to IT managers or educators.

Open Source Lab by Stanford University

The Stanford Open Source Lab is an open source site created by a group of people across Stanford that “feel that openness matters”. Stanford plans to add even more open source publishing and software development.

Flavours of Open

Flavours of Open, a community-run open source tool, is described by the creator to be “a site of experimentation for exploring open source tools and modes of presentation for open science and open education”. The information can be videos, texts, and code collaboration.

Conda-Forge

Conda-forge is an open source GitHub organization with repositories of conda-built recipes. There are many providers including AppVeyor, Azure Pipelines, CircleCI, and TravisCI which automatically can build their conda-built recipe on Windows, Linux, and OSX.

Netdata

On the open source platform, Netdata, a user can find documents and reference material to help find insight into a company’s system, containers, and applications using accurate metrics, visualizations, and more.

Bottom Line: Open Source Software

Open source software is a program where the developer chooses whether or not to release the source code for free. Anyone can download, modify, and distribute it without fees. 

These open source sites are helpful open source resources for every company’s needs.

The open source list has quite a few additions related to cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI). It also has other helpful tools for cybersecurity, healthcare, e-commerce, and more, based on software types and industries.

Open Source Software Categories

• Cloud Open Source Software
  
• Cybersecurity Open Source Software
  
• Healthcare Open Source Software
  
• E-Commerce Open Source Software
• Education Open Source Software
  
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) Open Source Software
• Big Data Open Source Software
  
• Content Management System (CMS) Open Source Software
  
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Open Source Software
  
• Internet of Things (IoT) Open Source Software
  

Cloud Open Source Software

Open source cloud software follows the recent trend of more cloud software. However, cloud open source software can save company’s money, giving companies more flexibility at a low or no cost. 

Here are five of the top cloud open source software:

ManageIQ

This cloud management solution is the open source project behind Red Hat CloudForms. It enables services like chargebacks, service orchestration, lifecycle management, and automated workflows, as well as enabling hybrid cloud environments. Operating System: Linux, VMware

OpenNebula

OpenNebula promises “the simplest cloud deployment and management experience.” Paid support, training, engineering, and consulting are available through OpenNebula Systems. Operating System: Linux.

OpenStack

This very popular cloud computing platform claims that “hundreds of the world’s largest brands” rely on it every day. Its sponsors include AT&T, Ubuntu, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, IBM, Intel, Rackspace, Red Hat, SUSE, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Symantec, and many other well-known technology firms. Operating System: OS Independent

Scalr

This cloud management platform has been highly ranked by market research firms, and it simplifies the process of managing multiple cloud environments. Its notable users include Expedia, Samsung, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Accenture, Sony, and Autodesk. Operating System: Linux

StackSync

This tool describes itself as “the open source personal cloud for organizations.” Like Dropbox, it syncs files across multiple devices, and it also includes client-side encryption for security. Operating System: Windows, Linux

For more on the cloud market: Top 16 Cloud Service Providers & Companies

Cybersecurity Open Source Software

Cybersecurity is necessary for every company. With cybersecurity open source software, companies can save money while protecting their infrastructure.

Here are four of the top cybersecurity open source software:

Mesos

Apache Mesos is a resource abstraction tool that makes it possible for enterprises to treat their entire data center as a single pool of resources, and it is popular with companies that are also running Hadoop, Spark, and similar applications. Organizations that use it include Airbnb, CERN, Cisco, Coursera, Foursquare, Groupon, Netflix, Twitter, and Uber. Operating System: Linux, OS X

Docker

Docker has quickly established itself as the dominant platform in the field of containerization. Many of the biggest names in technology, including Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Red Hat, Rackspace, and Canonical are building or offering products that extend or use Docker technology. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

Kubernetes

Developed by Google, Kubernetes is an open source container management solution. It is highly scalable, running billions of containers in Google’s data centers, as well as containers at Viacom, Ebay, and Wikimedia. Note that to use it you will need Docker and a Google Cloud Platform Account. Operating System: Linux, OS X.

Linux Containers

This group oversees three separate containerization-related projects: LXC, a set of tools for containerization; LXD, a descendant of LXC which provides a more intuitive user experience; CG Manager container group manager daemon and the LXCFS filesystem. Its stated goal is “to offer a distro- and vendor-neutral environment for the development of Linux container technologies. Operating System: Linux

Learn more about cybersecurity.

Healthcare Open Source Software

Healthcare open source software is a vital role in the growth and development of their systems. Patient data, test results, scans, and more are important to protect, and open source health software can keep them safe.

Here are three of the top healthcare open source software:

GNU Health

An official GNU project, this award-winning application combines EMR functionality with a hospital information system and a health information system. It was designed to comply with industry standards, and it’s been adopted by the United Nations University. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

OpenMRS

OpenMRS began as a project to fix the medical record system at a clinic in Kenya and has grown into a leading open source medical record system used around the world, particularly in developing countries. It describes itself as “both just a library of API calls and a database and a default implementation of those API calls in the form of a web application.” Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

OpenClinic GA

Designed for healthcare facilities with limited resources, this hospital information system has been implemented extensively in Africa. It supports multiple languages, and it integrates with Central African health insurance billing tools. Operating System: Windows, Linux.

E-Commerce Open Source Software

E-commerce websites should be able to develop while giving companies the factors they need.  affording the freedom to customize it according to your needs.

Here are five of the top healthcare open source software:

Drupal Commerce

Designed for users with some development expertise, Drupal Commerce is a framework useful for building online shopping sites of all sizes. It includes a payment method API, tax calculation, dynamic product display, discount pricing rules, and more. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

ImpleCode eCommerce Product Catalog

This plug-in installs with just one click and works with any WordPress theme. It’s highly flexible, SEO-friendly, and accepts multiple currencies. Operating System: OS Independent

Isotope eCommerce

Isotope is an e-commerce plug-in for Contao CMS, a Web content management system designed to be accessible to people with disabilities. It’s highly flexible and paid support is available for purchase. Operating System: OS Independent

Lightspeed Web Store

This e-commerce platform was designed for brick-and-mortar retailers that want to have an online presence. It integrates with Lightspeed’s POS solutions. The source code is available on GitHub. Operating System: OS Independent

PrestaShop

PrestaShop is a very popular e-commerce solution with a mobile-responsive design, advanced SEO features, in-depth sales statistics, dynamic pricing rules, coupons and vouchers, reviews, loyalty programs, and email marketing. Paid cloud and expert versions are available, as well as a free download. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.

Education Open Source Software

Education companies and schools should have free or lower-cost open source software to help students and staff add and get more comfortable with their software.

Here are four of the top education open source software:

Safe Exam Browser

If you’re giving a browser-based test (for example, through a learning management system), this tool locks down the student’s system so they can’t browse the Internet or access other applications while taking the exam. It can be used with student-owned PCs, as well as with school-owned, networked systems. Operating System: Windows.

Anki

This app boasts that it can help students learn just about any type of information, whether they are learning a new language, studying for medical exams, or trying to remember guitar chords. It comes in iOS and Android versions, making it ideal for learning on the go. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X, iOS, Android.

The Mnemosyne Project

One of the better flashcard apps available, Mnemosyne was born from a research project that is studying the nature of long-term memory. It supports multiple card formats and uses an algorithm to determine which card should appear next. Users who choose to do so can upload their progress anonymously to provide data for the research team. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X, Android

MiKTeX

Specifically designed to help with the creation of technical publications and books that contain a lot of mathematics, MiKTeX brings the TeX/LaTeX solution that is familiar to many Linux users to Windows. Numerous add-ons extend its capabilities. Operating System: Windows, Linux

For more information on education technology: How AI is Being Used in Education

Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) Open Source Software

Open source artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) software has an underlying code and is open to changes in scenarios.

Here are four of the top AI/ML open source software:

H2O.ai

Focused more on enterprise uses for AI than on research, H2O has large companies like Capital One, Cisco, Nielsen Catalina, PayPal, and Transamerica among its users. It claims to make it possible for anyone to use the power of machine learning and predictive analytics to solve business problems. It can be used for predictive modeling, risk and fraud analysis, insurance analytics, advertising technology, healthcare, and customer intelligence.

It comes in two open source versions: standard H2O and Sparkling Water, which is integrated with Apache Spark. Paid enterprise support is also available.

OpenNN

Designed for researchers and developers with advanced an understanding of artificial intelligence, OpenNN is a C++ programming library for implementing neural networks. Its key features include deep architectures and fast performance. Extensive documentation is available on the website, including an introductory tutorial that explains the basics of neural networks. Paid support for OpenNNis available through Artelnics, a Spain-based firm that specializes in predictive analytics.

TensorFlow

TensorFlow is one of Google’s open source artificial intelligence tools. It offers a library for numerical computation using data flow graphs. It can run on a wide variety of different systems with single- or multi-CPUs and GPUs and even runs on mobile devices. It boasts deep flexibility, true portability, automatic differential capabilities, and support for Python and C++. The website includes a very extensive list of tutorials and how-tos for developers or researchers interested in using or extending its capabilities.

Mahout

An Apache Foundation project, Mahout is an open source machine learning framework. According to its website, it offers three major features: a programming environment for building scalable algorithms, premade algorithms for tools like Spark and H2O, and a vector-math experimentation environment called Samsara. Companies using Mahout include Adobe, Accenture, Foursquare, Intel, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo, and many others. Professional support is available through third parties listed on the website. Operating System: OS Independent.

For more on AI: 100 Top Artificial Intelligence (AI) Companies

Big Data Open Source Software

Big data needs to be analyzed so a company can see patterns and trends, specifically human behavior and interactions. Open source software will help a company pay less for visibility.

Here are five of the top big data open source software:

Alluxio

Formerly known as Tachyon, Alluxio describes itself as “a memory-centric distributed storage system enabling reliable data sharing at memory speed across cluster frameworks.” It works with tools like Spark and Hadoop to speed up performance on big data queries. Operating System: Linux, OS X

Hadoop

This Apache-sponsored project is the best-known big data tool available. Numerous companies, including Amazon Web Services, Cloudera, Hortonworks, IBM, Pivotal, SyncSort, and VMware, offer related products or commercial support for Hadoop. Well-known users include Alibaba, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, Hulu, LinkedIn, Spotify, Twitter, and Yahoo. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

Pentaho

Now owned by Hitachi Vantara, Pentaho describes itself as “a comprehensive data integration and business analytics platform.” Its customers include Caterpillar, Halliburton, BR, and Nasdaq. It allows organizations to integrate big data from a variety of sources, including Hadoop, NoSQL databases, analytic databases, and relational databases. It then enables interactive analysis, reporting, and visualizations, allowing users to create customized dashboards that suit their unique purposes.

The open source version of the Pentaho software is available on the Community website. In addition, the company offers a free thirty-day trial of its paid enterprise software, and it offers a variety of paid services like custom visualizations, training, enterprise support, consulting, certification, and technical support. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

GridGain

Powered by Apache Ignite, GridGrain offers an in-memory data fabric for the fast processing of big data and a Hadoop Accelerator based on the same technology. It comes in a paid enterprise version and a free community edition, which includes free basic support. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.

Apache Impala

Cloudera claims that its SQL-based Impala database is “the leading open source analytic database for Apache Hadoop.” It can be downloaded as a standalone product and is also part of Cloudera’s commercial big data products. Operating System: Linux, OS X.

For more information on big data: Top 23 Big Data Companies: Which Are The Best?

Content Management System (CMS) Open Source Software

A content management system (CMS) lets a company create a website without understanding any code. There are many options of CMS open source software available for big data.

Here are five of the top CMS open source software:

Orchard

This ASP.NET-based CMS is modular and highly extensible, making it easy to add blogs, photos, and much more. The project has several international communities, and Microsoft staffers are involved in the project. Operating System: Windows

Plone

Calling itself “the ultimate enterprise CMS,” Plone offers integration with many other enterprise tools including Salesforce and other CRM solutions, Oracle, continuous integration tools, and many Web services. Paid support and other services are available through third-party providers. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

Pimcore

This award-winning CMS claims to be “the industry’s first integrated open-source e-commerce and product information management platform for delivering rich and compelling e-commerce (B2C/B2B) experiences across all available channels.” Paid support, training, and add-ons can be purchased through the site. Operating System: Linux, Unix

SEOToaster

This solution claims to be “the most advanced SEO CMS and ecommerce website builder.” It offers hub and spoke marketing technology that allows users to manage localized websites from a centralized interface. Operating System: OS Independent

SilverStripe

Created by developers in New Zealand, SilverStripe is both an open source CMS and a development firm that provides a variety of related services. SwipeStripe adds e-commerce capabilities to SilverStripe sites. Operating System: OS Independent

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Open Source Software

Open source software with customer relationship management (CRM) offers customer support, pipeline management, and more.

.Here are five of the top CRM open source software:

iDempiere

This community-run ERP, CRM, and supply chain management solution is a fork of an earlier project called ADempiere, which was itself a fork of Compiere. iDempiere, as it is now called, has adopted OSGi standards and continued development on the ADempiere code. A good option for international organizations, it can handle multiple organizations, multiple languages, multiple currencies, and multiple accounting formats. It offers tools for materials management, procurement, sales and marketing, manufacturing management, accounting, and more. Because it is Java-based, it can run on Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X servers; it also requires a PostgreSQL or Oracle database. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X, others

Group-Office

Group-Office combines enterprise CRM and groupware features like calendar and email. The paid professional version adds a help desk, mobile sync, time-tracking, projects, and document editing. A hosted cloud version is also available. Operating System: OS Independent.

CiviCRM

CiviCRM was particularly designed for advocacy groups, NGOs, and non-profit organizations with similar needs. It includes modules for case management, fundraising, event management, membership management, e-mail communications, and marketing, and it integrates with both Drupal and Joomla. Operating System: OS Independent

SugarCRM

SugarCRM is an extremely popular, award-winning open source CRM solution. The website link above is primarily devoted to selling cloud-based subscriptions, but you can find the open source version at SugarCRM.com/download. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

X2Contacts

This CRM tool gives marketers the ability to capture Web leads, track Website visits, draft and track emails, and automate and manage campaigns. It comes in a cloud-based version that runs on AWS or in an open source version. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X.

Internet of Things (IoT) Open Source Software

Internet of Things (IoT) open source software is a significant help in connecting other IoT devices and applications to pass on information. IoT open source software will help a company while saving money.

Here are 10 of the top IoT open source software:

Arduino

One of the best-known names among open source IoT projects, Arduino is a platform that encompasses both hardware and software. The software includes an integrated development environment (IDE) for writing code in the Arduino language.

Eclipse IoT Project

The Eclipse Foundation has a long list of IoT-related projects that include standards and development frameworks. The project also offers a wealth of videos, tutorials, sandboxes, and other tools to help new IoT developers get started on their first projects.

Kaa

Focused on speeding IoT projects, Kaa describes itself as “a production-ready, multi-purpose middleware platform for building complete end-to-end IoT solutions, connected applications, and smart products.” It enables communication and monitoring between IoT devices and back-end infrastructure, and it can be easily deployed on Amazon’s cloud. Operating System: Linux

OpenIoT

Funded in part by the EU, OpenIoT describes itself as a “blueprint middleware infrastructure for implementing/integrating Internet-of-Things solutions.” The project’s goals are to be able to collect and process data from nearly any IoT device, a stream that data to the cloud and analyze and visualize the collected data. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

SiteWhere

SiteWhere aims to help companies build scalable IoT applications and speed their time-to-market with new products and services. It integrates with MongoDB, HBase, Hortonworks, Clouder, Apache Solr, and Twilio, and it supports deployment on nearly any cloud computing platform.

ThingSpeak

This IoT application and API make it possible to collect and process data from remote devices. Key features include real-time data collection, geolocation data support, data processing, data visualizations, and device status messages.

Windows Developer Program for IoT

Microsoft released much of the code for its IoT program on GitHub. It’s a collection of tools and templates for programming small devices and connecting them to Azure services. Operating System: Windows, Linux

Zetta

Based on Node.js, Zetta can create IoT servers that link to various devices and sensors. The website includes a page devoted to projects built with betta that includes a car speed tracker and home security systems.

RIOT

RIOT calls itself “the friendly operating system for the Internet of Things,” and it aims to be developer-friendly, resource-friendly, and IoT-friendly. Key features include support for C and C++, partial POSIX compliance, multi-threading, energy efficiency, and more.

Node-RED

This “visual tool for wiring the Internet of Things” simplifies the process of connecting IoT devices with APIs and online services. It is built on Node.js and includes a browser-based flow editor. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X

Bottom Line: Open Source Software

The open source list has quite a few additions related to cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), cybersecurity, healthcare, e-commerce, education, big data, customer relationship management (CRM), and content management system (CMS). 

As the list of open source software grows, more companies can find the software they need to improve their systems.

As artificial intelligence (AI) has become a growing force in business, today’s top AI companies are leaders in this emerging technology. Often leveraging cloud computing and edge computing, AI companies mix and match various technologies to meet and exceed use case expectations in the home, the workplace, and the greater community.

Machine learning (ML) leads the pack in this realm, but today’s leading AI firms are expanding their capabilities through other technologies, from predictive analytics to business intelligence (BI) to data warehouse tools to the deep learning (DL) segment of AI, alleviating several industry pain points. To help organizations keep up with the AI market, see this breakdown of top companies playing a key role in shaping the future of AI — by industry:

Top AI Companies by Industry

• Cloud AI Companies
• Health Care AI Companies
• Vehicle/Transportation AI Companies
• Security AI Companies
• E-Commerce AI Companies
• Financial AI Companies
• Education AI Companies
• Manufacturing/Engineering AI Companies
• Energy/Environment AI Companies
• Robotics AI Companies
• Entertainment AI Companies

Cloud AI Companies

Major cloud companies, such as Microsoft and Google, have created their own cloud AI tools, along with competitors, including DataRobot.

Here are eight the top cloud AI companies:

1. Google Cloud

Google, a leader in AI and data analytics, is on a massive AI acquisition binge, having acquired a number of AI startups in the last several years. Google is deeply invested in furthering artificial intelligence capabilities. In addition to using AI to improve its services, Google Cloud sells several AI and machine learning services to businesses. It has an industry-leading software project in TensorFlow as well as its own Tensor AI chip project.

2. IBM Cloud

IBM is a leader in the field of artificial intelligence. Its efforts in recent years center around IBM Watson, an AI-based cognitive service, AI software as a service, and scale-out systems designed for delivering cloud-based analytics and AI services. It has been acquisitive, purchasing several startups over several years. It benefits from having a strong cloud platform.

3. Alibaba Cloud

A leading cloud platform in Asia, Alibaba offers clients a sophisticated machine learning platform for AI. Significantly, the platform offers a visual interface for ease of use, so companies can drag and drop various components into a canvas to assemble their AI functionality. Also included in the platform are scores of algorithm components that can handle any number of chores, enabling customers to use pre-built solutions.

4. Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS provides AI services that use the tools for a company’s applications and workloads. Their AI services integrate with their infrastructure to help a company address their recommendations, modernizing contact centers, security, and customer engagement. The service gives quality ML services to give accurate APIs. AWS AI requires no formal experience with ML or AI, which is a great feature for businesses who are beginning to update their systems.

5. DataRobot

A high-profile emerging cloud AI company, DataRobot provides the experienced data scientist with a platform for building and deploying machine learning models. The software helps business analysts build predictive analytics with no knowledge of machine learning or programming and uses automated ML to build and deploy accurate predictive models quickly.

6. Baidu AI Cloud

China-based Baidu is a company with a focus on AI and the cloud. Baidu supports AI platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and AI SaaS solutions across many industries, such as transportation, finance, manufacturing, and media. To help their customers, Baidu uses AI, machine learning, deep learning, language processing, video, and data analysis. Baidu is mostly used by developers.

7. Microsoft Azure

Microsoft offers a mix of consumer-facing and business AI projects. On its Azure cloud service, Microsoft sells a range of AI services, such as bot services, machine learning, and cognitive services. Recently, Microsoft has invested in OpenAI to further their partnership and create new AI technology. “Azure’s unique architecture design has been crucial in delivering best-in-class performance and scale for our AI training and inference workloads,” says a representative from OpenAI about their partnership.

8. Salesforce

In recent years, Salesforce has acquired a handful of AI startups and sharpened the features of Salesforce Einstein, their artificial intelligence service. The initiative, which includes an extensive team of data scientists, uses machine learning to help employees more efficiently perform tasks by simplifying and speeding them up. In addition to Salesforce’s employees, Einstein is available for customers who can build their own applications and are interested in features, like recommendation builder, scorecards, and in-depth navigation insights.

Learn more about Cloud Computing

Healthcare AI Companies

Artificial intelligence within healthcare has become a helpful tool to catch early signs of disease, what medicine works best for a patient, and  speed up vaccination creation and processes.

Here are 12 of the top healthcare AI companies:

9. Tempus

Tempus, specializing in “data-driven precision medicine,” uses an AI application strategy to fight disease and bolster patient outcomes. It gathers and analyzes massive pools of medical and clinical data at scale to provide precision medicine that personalizes and optimizes treatments to each individual’s specific health needs. Applications include neurology, psychiatry, and oncology.

10. Suki.Ai

It’s not enough that Suki offers an AI-powered software solution that assists doctors as they make voice notes on a busy day. Suki’s aim — using the power of AI to learn over time — is to mold and adapt to users with repeated use, so the solution becomes more of a time saver and efficiency booster for physicians over time. As a sign of the times, Suki was delivered with COVID-19 data and templates to speed up the vaccination and health tracking processes.

11. Nanox

Nanox has completed its acquisition of Zebra Medical Systems, an Israeli company that applied deep learning techniques to the field of radiology. It claims it can predict multiple diseases with better than human accuracy, by examining a huge library of medical images and specialized examination technology. It also moved its AI algorithms to Google Cloud to help it scale and offer inexpensive medical scans.

12. Freenome

Freenome uses artificial intelligence to conduct cancer screenings and diagnostic tests to spot signs of cancer earlier than possible with traditional testing methods. It uses non-invasive blood tests to recognize disease-associated patterns. The company’s solution has trained on cancer-positive blood samples, which enables it to detect problems using specific biomarkers.

13. Neurala

Neurala claims that it helps users improve visual inspection problems using AI technology. The company manages The Neurala Brain, a deep learning neural network software that makes devices, like cameras, phones, and drones, smarter and easier to use. AI tends to be power hungry, but the Neurala Brain uses audio and visual input in low-power settings to make simple devices more intelligent.

14. ICarbonX

iCarbonX is a Chinese biotech startup that uses artificial intelligence to provide personalized health analyses and health index predictions. It has formed an alliance with several technology companies from around the world that specialize in gathering different types of healthcare data and will use algorithms to analyze genomic, physiological, and behavioral data. It also works to provide customized health and medical advice.

15. Flatiron Health

Using machine learning to mine health data for cancer research, Flatiron finds cancer research information in near real-time, drawing on a variety of sources. The company raised more than $175 million in Series C funding before being acquired by cancer research giant Roche.

See more: Using AI for Better Decision-Making

16. Deep 6

Deep 6 uses AI to, in its own words, “find more patients in minutes, not months.” The patients in this sense are participants in clinical trials — a critical part of the research process in developing new medicine. Certainly one of the challenging issues that were faced during the quest for a COVID-19 vaccine was finding a community of appropriate candidates. Deep 6 finds these kinds of communities by using an AI-powered system to scan through medical records, with the ability to understand patterns in human health.

17. Butterfly Network

Using AI to make healthcare more affordable and accessible, Butterfly Network provides a handheld medical diagnostic device that connects with a user’s smartphone. This device, powered by Butterfly iQ, allows an ultrasound examination of the entire body, at a far lower cost than legacy systems. This is especially helpful for underserved communities where health care resources are scarce.

18. K Health

There’s a gray area in our lives in terms of health care; we ask ourselves, does this problem I’m having really require making a doctor’s appointment, or could a major dose of simple information be enough? K Health’s AI solution operates in this area. Users can text a doctor or find similar cases near them, which has been particularly useful for COVID-19. Using a model built from a vast store of anonymous health records, its system offers help based on how a user’s complaint correlates with this vast history of other patients. Think of K Health as the advanced edge of telemedicine.

19. Insitro

Insitro operates at “the convergence of human biology and machine learning.” More specifically, it uses artificial intelligence to build models of various human illnesses, using those models to forecast previously unknown solutions beyond human intuition. These models use the power of ML to improve drug discovery and development. Founded by Daphne Koller, Insitro has drawn investment from an exhaustive array of VC and financial firms.

Learn more about AI in healthcare

Vehicle/Transportation AI Companies

Artificial intelligence is being used by vehicle and transportation companies to help create safer streets, railways, and air travel.

Here are eight of the top vehicle and transportation AI companies:

20. Anduril Industries

Palmer Luckey is one of the most intriguing figures in today’s emerging tech. He co-founded Oculus, which Facebook bought for a cool $2 billion. Post-Facebook and at the ripe age of 27, he launched Anduril with co-founder Brian Schimpf. Anduril adds sophisticated sensors, vehicles, and drones to create a threat protection zone. Products include Sentry Tower for autonomous awareness, Ghost 4 sUAS for intelligent air support, and Anvil sUAS for precision kinetic intercept.

21. AEye

AEye builds the vision algorithms, computer vision strategy, software, and hardware used to guide autonomous vehicles, or self-driving cars. Its LiDAR technology focuses on the most important information in a vehicle’s sightline, such as people, other cars, and animals, while putting less emphasis on other landscape features, like the sky, buildings, and surrounding vegetation. AEye has also entered into a merger agreement with CF Finance Acquisition Corp. III.

See more: 5 Top Computer Vision Trends

22. Pony.Ai

Pony.ai develops software for autonomous vehicles. The company was created by ex-Google and Baidu engineers who felt that the big companies were moving too slowly in this arena. It has already made its first fully autonomous driving demonstration and now operates a self-driving ride-sharing fleet in Guangzhou, China, using cars from a local automaker. The company raised $400 million in funding from Toyota.

23. Nauto

Nauto offers an AI-powered driver behavior learning platform. So instead of self-driving cars, Nauto is an AI model designed to improve the safety of commercial fleets and autonomous fleets. The platform assesses how drivers interact with the vehicle and the road ahead to reduce distracted driving and prevent collisions.

24. Nuro

Nuro makes small self-driving electric delivery trucks designed for local deliveries, such as groceries or takeout. Its founders previously worked on Google’s Waymo self-driving car project. Overall, the company’s goal is to boost the value of robotics in daily life.

25. Zoox

Acquired in a $1.2 billion deal by Amazon, Zoox still operates as an independent company within Amazon. Zoox focuses on building a self-driving fleet, hence Amazon’s interest. Their AI-based vehicle is geared for the robo-taxi market.

26. DJI

Based in China, DJI is a big player in the rapidly growing drone market. The company is leveraging AI and image recognition to track and monitor the landscape, and it’s expected that the company will play a role in the self-driving car market. DJI has partnered with Microsoft for a drone initiative.

27. Orbital Insight

Orbital Insight uses satellite geospatial imagery and artificial intelligence to gain insights not visible to the human eye. It uses data from satellites, drones, balloons, and other aircraft to look for answers or insight on things related to the agriculture and energy industries that normally wouldn’t be visible. The company describes itself as a leader in geospatial analytics.

Learn more about Vehicle/Transportation AI

Security AI Companies

Companies are adding AI to their software to help identify, predict, and respond to cybersecurity threats. Many AI security products are working to detect vulnerabilities based on previous threats.

Here are eight of the top security AI companies:

28. CrowdStrike

This cloud-based SaaS company focuses on endpoint security. Leveraging AI, CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform can identify what it calls active indicators of attack to detect malicious activity before a breach actually happens. It presents the network administrators with actionable intelligence of real-time findings for them to take necessary action.

29. BlackBerry

BlackBerry has acquired the AI cybersecurity company Cylance. The two joined forces to develop security apps that prevent, instead of reactively detect, viruses and other malware. Using a mathematical learning process, BlackBerry Cybersecurity identifies what is safe and what is a threat rather than operating from a blacklist or whitelist. The company claims its machine learning has an understanding of a hacker’s mentality to predict their behavior.

30. DataVisor

DataVisor uses machine learning to detect fraud and financial crime, using unsupervised machine learning to identify attack campaigns before they result in any damage. DataVisor protects companies from attacks, such as account takeovers, fake account creation, money laundering, fake social posts, and fraudulent transactions.

31. Sherpa.Ai

Sherpa is a virtual personal assistant that works with a user’s entire array of devices, inferring and predicting their needs that allow the assistant to learn about the users and anticipate their needs before they ask. It works with many consumer devices and any accessory that could use some kind of intelligence in privacy or cybersecurity. Tapping a growth market, Sherpa sells white label digital assistants for consumer applications.

32. BigPanda

The goal of BigPanda is to leverage AI to lessen or stop IT outages before they take down a full business, an e-commerce operation, or a mission-critical application. In essence, this company’s goal is the magic of AIOps, using AI to improve admin and IT operation, which is a major growth area.

33. Symphony AyasdiAI

Ayasdi was acquired by the SymphonyAI Group. Symphony AyasdiAI is a machine intelligence software company that offers intelligent applications to its clients around the world for big data and complex data analytics problems. Its goal is to help customers automate what would be manual processes of using their own unique data. Symphony AyasdiAI also partnered with Sionic, leading to a greater focus on financial crime detection.

34. Dataminr

Dataminr is a global real-time information discovery company that monitors news feeds for high-impact events and critical breaking news. It cuts through the clutter of non-news or irrelevant news to specific industries and only provides highly relevant news when it happens. For news-sensitive vendors, its goal is to detect early risks from media coverage.

35. Darktrace

Cybersecurity company Darktrace is based in the U.K., focusing on how to help customers keep their data and infrastructure secure. Using self-learning AI, Darktrace can detect specific needs of their customers. Darktrace works to prevent, detect, respond, and heal from cyberattacks all at once.

See more: 3 Missing Strategic Opportunities for AI

E-Commerce AI Companies

From marketing to sales, AI e-commerce providers are helping companies use big data to increase revenue through better demand planning and real-time optimizations and targeting.

Here are 24 of the top e-commerce AI companies:

36. Algorithmia

Is there a better name for an AI company than Algorithmia? Now a DataRobot company after an acquisition, Algorithmia’s goal is to help data scientists find and use algorithms. It was initially an exchange for algorithms on a one-off, single-user basis. As it has grown, it has set its sights on the enterprise market.

37. The Trade Desk

A company designed to help digital advertisers run targeted digital advertising campaigns, The Trade Desk uses AI to optimize its customers’ advertising campaigns for their appropriate audiences. Their AI, known as Koa, was built to analyze data across the internet to figure out what certain audiences are looking for and where ads should be placed to optimize reach and cost. The Trade Desk also allows you to launch your digital ads independently but uses its AI to offer performance suggestions while your campaign is live.

38. Swim.Ai

Swim.ai’s goal is to enable businesses to mine continuously streaming data into actionable insights. Leveraging machine learning, the company’s “open core platform” augments the decision-making process by providing streaming data and contextualizing data sources. The SwimOS is open source.

39. Phrasee

Phrasee specializes in natural language generation for marketing copy. Its natural language generation system can generate millions of human-sounding variants of marketing at the touch of a button, allowing customers to tailor their copy to targeted customers. Retail, marketing, and AI are a combination of a rapid growth curve in the AI sector. During the COVID-19 pandemic, several retailers, such as Walgreens, used Phrasee to boost customer engagement related to vaccination.

40. Pymetrics

Based in New York City, Pymetrics leverages AI to help companies hire optimal candidates by examining more than what’s traditionally included in a resume scan. Customers have their best employees fill out the Pymetrics assessment, which then creates a model for what future ideal candidates should bring to the table. In essence, the AI-based system is attempting to find more new staff that will fit in well with the existing top staff, using AI and behavioral science.

41. People.Ai

People.ai’s goal is to streamline the life of salespeople, assisting them in putting the reams of small details into relevant CRM systems, chiefly Salesforce. Think of all those pesky info bits from texting, your calendar, and endless Slack conversations — the company aims to help you with all of that. Plus, the system attempts to coach sales reps on the most effective ways to manage their time.

42. AlphaSense

AlphaSense is an AI-powered search engine designed for investment firms, banks, and Fortune “500” companies. The search engine focuses on searching for important information within earnings call transcripts, SEC filings, news, and research. The technology also uses artificial intelligence to expand keyword searches for relevant content.

43. Icertis

The remarkable truth about AI is that it keeps moving up the food chain in terms of the sophisticated tasks it can handle. Taking a big step up from simple automation, Icertis,  with a decade under its belt, handles millions of business contracts through a method they call contract intelligence. Leveraging the cloud, the company’s solution automates certain tasks and scans previous contract details. The company has gained some big clients , like Microsoft, and was named a Gartner leader.

44. Bizzabo

Bizzabo acquired X.ai. Geared to assist the busiest of people, X.ai’s intelligent virtual assistant “Amy” helps users schedule meetings. The concept is simple: If you receive a meeting request but don’t have time to work out logistics, you copy Amy in the email, and she handles it. Through machine learning and natural language processing, Amy schedules the best time and location for your meeting based on your preferences and schedule.

45. One Model

Human resources can be a bifurcated digital workspace, with different apps for each task that HR handles. OneModel is a talent analytics accelerator that helps HR departments handle employees, career pathing, recruiting, succession, exits, engagement, surveys, HR effectiveness, payroll, planning, and other HR features all in one place and in a uniform way. The company’s core goal is to equip HR pros with machine learning smarts.

46. CopyAI

A fairly new startup in the AI copywriting space, Copy.ai uses basic inputs from users to generate marketing copy in seconds. It can create copy for a variety of different formats, including article outlines, meta descriptions, digital ads, social media content, and sales copy. Copy.ai has raised $2.9 million in funding from Craft Ventures and several other smaller investors. With its use of the GPT-3 language model to generate words, Copy.ai is a content-driven AI tool to keep an eye on.

47. C3.Ai

Focusing on enterprise AI, C3.ai offers a wide array of pre-built applications, along with a PaaS solution, to enable the development of enterprise-level AI, IoT applications, and analytics software. These AI-fueled applications serve a wide array of sectors and industry verticals, from supply chains to health care to anti-fraud efforts. The goal is to speed up and optimize the process of digital transformation.

48. Accubits

Accubits, a top-rated AI development company, focuses most of its energy on helping businesses enable AI for new efficiencies in their existing systems. Some of their AI solutions include intelligent chatbots in CRMs and predictive health diagnostics, both of which are designed to mesh with your existing software infrastructure. Accubits works across industries, like consumer technology, automotive, cybersecurity, health care, and fashion.

49. SS&C Blue Prism

SS&C Technologies completed an acquisition of Blue Prism, a leading RPA company. Blue Prism uses AI-fueled automation to do an array of repetitive, manual software tasks, which frees human staff up to focus on more meaningful work. The company’s AI laboratory researches automated document reading and software vision. To further boost its AI functionality, Blue Prism bought Thoughtonomy, which offers AI-based cloud solutions.

50. DocuSign

A well-known technology company in the contract world, DocuSign uses e-signature technology to digitize the contracting process across a multitude of industries. Many users don’t realize some of the AI features that DocuSign powers, such as AI-powered contract and risk analysis that is applied to a contract before you sign. This AI process lends itself to more efficient contract negotiations and/or renegotiations.

51. Tetra Tech

Tetra Tech uses AI to take notes on phone calls, so people working in call centers can focus on discussions with the callers. It uses AI to generate a detailed script of dialogues using its speech recognition technology. Given the large market for call centers,  and the need to make them more effective at low cost, this is a big market for AI.

52. Nvidia

Nvidia’s emergence as an AI leader was hardly overnight. It has been promoting its CUDA GPU programming language for nearly two decades. AI developers have come to see the value in the GPU’s massively parallel processing design and embraced Nvidia GPUs for machine learning and artificial intelligence.

53. ViSenze

ViSenze’s artificial intelligence visual recognition technology works by recommending visually similar items to users when shopping online. Its advanced visual search and image recognition solutions help businesses in e-commerce, m-commerce, and online advertising by recommending visually similar items to online shoppers.

54. ServiceNow

Element AI was acquired by ServiceNow. Originally based in Montreal, Element AI provides a platform for companies to build AI-powered solutions, particularly for companies that may not have the in-house talent to do it. Element AI says it supports app-building for predictive modeling, forecasting modeling, conversational AI and NLP, image recognition, and automatic tagging of attributes based on images.

55. Pointr

Pointr is an indoor positioning and navigation company with analytics and messaging features that help people navigate busy locations, like train stations and airport terminals. Its modules include indoor navigation, contextual notifications, location-based analytics, and location tracking. Its Bluetooth beacons use customer phones to help orient them around the building.

56. Directly

Considered one of the best AI-driven customer support tools on the market, Directly counts Microsoft as a customer. It helps its customers by intelligently routing their questions to chatbots to answer their questions personally or to customer support personnel. It prides itself on intelligent automation.

57. Rulai

You have surely encountered the limited conversational style of a chatbot; a few stock phrases delivered in a monotone. Rulai is working to change this using the flexibility and adaptability of AI. The company claims its level 3 AI dialog manager can create “multi-round” conversations without requiring code from customers. Clearly a major growth area.

58. Tamr

In a world run by data, in many cases, someone, or some system, has to prep that data so it’s usable. Data preparation is unglamorous but absolutely essential. Tamr combines machine learning and human tech staff to help customers optimize and integrate the highest value datasets into operations. Referred to as an enterprise-scale data unification company, Tamr enables cloud-native, on-premise, or hybrid scenarios — truly a good fit for today’s data-driven, multicloud world.

59. Aurea Software

Aurea Software acquired Xant and returned the brand to its original and widely recognized name, InsideSales, that same year. InsideSales is a sales acceleration platform with a predictive and prescriptive self-learning engine, assisting in a sale and providing guidance to the salesperson to help close the deal. At its core is machine learning.

For more: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Retail

Financial AI Companies

AI in finance is being used to help reduce debt, eliminate fraud, and offer higher approval rates. Both banks and consumers can benefit from AI in financial offerings.

Here are seven of the top financial AI companies:

60. HighRadius

Based in Houston, HighRadius is a finance AI platform to help many large companies across the world to transform their organization’s cash, treasury, and records. HighRadius works to deliver measurable business outcomes for working capital optimization, debt reduction, reduce month-long timelines, and improve employee productivity within six months.

61. Signifyd

Based in San Jose, California, Signifyd is an AI financial company with a goal to provide an end-to-end commerce protection platform for their customers that can leverage its commerce network to maximize conversion, eliminate fraud, and avoid consumer abuse.

62. Numberai

San Francisco-based Numerai is a financial AI company that manages an institutional grade global equity strategy for investors. Using machine learning to transform and regulate their global network of data scientists. Numberai created the first encrypted data science tournament for stock market predictions.

63. Cleo

London-based Cleo is a financial AI company that uses an AI assistant to help their customers improve their relationship with money and financial health. Cleo’s AI assistant gives customers deep insights into their money while also helping customers save and budget their finances. Cleo aims to grow and develop with their customers.

64. Fount

Fount, an AI investment company based in Seoul, provides AI asset management services for their customers stretching across over 20 global financial institutions. Fount aims to pursue stable returns for their customers by diversifying investments. Fount provides sensitivity to global trends as well.

65. Upstart

Upstart, based in San Mateo, California, is an AI lending company that partners with banks and credit unions to offer more affordable credit. The banks and credit union customers that work with Upstart are more likely to have higher approval rates and lower loss rates. After being a public company, Upstart plans to leverage domain expertise and change aspects of leading and credit risk evaluation.

66. Brighterion

Once a stand-alone company and now a division of MasterCard, Brighterion offers AI for the financial services industry, specifically designed to block fraud rates. The company’s AI Express is a fast-to-market solution, within six to eight weeks, that is custom designed for customer use cases. Its solution is used by a majority of the 100 largest banks.

To learn more about AI in finance

Education AI Companies

The education industry is usingAI to help students and teachers alike with tutoring, transcription, personalization, and real-time feedback.

Here are six of the top education AI companies:

67. Riiid

Riiid is a leading AI education platform to empower global education outside of traditional ways of learning. Based in Mountain View, California, Riiid is a tutoring service based on deep-learning algorithms while replacing traditional textbooks and lectures. Riiid can be more affordable than human tutoring, drawing international success.

68. Iris.Ai

Iris.ai helps researchers sort through cross-disciplinary research to find relevant information, and as it is used more often, the tool learns how to return better results. Since its launch, many people have tried the service with some becoming regular users. Its Iris.ai release includes the Focus tool, an intelligent mechanism to refine and collate a reading list of research literature, cutting out a huge amount of manual effort.

69. Rev.Com

In a world with a vast ocean of podcasts and videos to transcribe, Rev uses AI to find its market. An AI-powered, but human-assisted, transcription provider, the company also sells access to developers, so tech-savvy folks can use its speech recognition technology. But the key part here is the combination of humans with AI, which is a sweet spot in the effective use cases for artificial intelligence. With a growing need for accessibility features in audiovisual production especially, expect more AI competitors to take advantage of a similar business model in the future.

70. Clarifai

Clarifai is an image recognition platform that helps users organize, filter, and search their image database. Images and videos are tagged, teaching the technology to find similarities in images. Its AI solution is offered via mobile, on-premises, or API interfaces. Beyond image recognition, Clarifai also offers solutions in computer vision, natural language processing, and automated machine learning.

71. HyperScience

HyperScience is designed to cut down on the tedium of mundane tasks, like filling out forms or data entry of handwritten forms. It also processes the relevant information from forms rather than requiring that a human read through the whole form. It touts itself as intelligent document processing.

72. Narrative Science

Narrative Science, a Salesforce company since its acquisition, creates natural language generation technology to translate data from multiple silos into what it calls stories. AI highlights only the most relevant and interesting information, to turn data into easy-to-understand reports, transform statistics into stories, and convert numbers into knowledge. To be sure, data storytelling is a key trend to watch.

For more: How AI is Being Used in Education

Manufacturing/Engineering AI Companies

AI manufacturing companies are working to revolutionize production methods and equipment to increase output while making factories faster and safer.

Here are eight of the top manufacturing and engineering AI companies:

73. CognitiveScale

CognitiveScale builds customer service AI apps for the health care, insurance, financial services, and digital commerce industries. Its products are built on its Cortex-augmented intelligence platform for companies to design, develop, deliver, and manage an enterprise-grade AI system. It also has an AI marketplace, which is an online AI collaboration system where business experts, researchers, data scientists, and developers can collaborate to solve problems.

74. Lobster Media

AI meets social media. Lobster Media is an AI-powered platform that helps brands, advertisers, and media outlets find and license user-generated social media content. Its process includes scanning major social networks and several cloud storage providers for images and video, using AI-tagging and machine learning algorithms to identify the most relevant content. It then provides those images to clients for a fee.

75. SenseTime

Based in Asia, SenseTime develops facial recognition technology that can be applied to payment and picture analysis. It is used in banks and security systems. Its valuation is impressive, racking several billion dollars in recent years. The company specializes in deep learning, education, and fintech.

76. Bright Machines

Automation in factories has been progressing for years, even decades, but Bright Machines is working to push it a quantum leap forward. Based in San Francisco, the AI company is leveraging advances in robotics like machine learning and facial recognition to create an AI platform for digital manufacturing. Its solutions can accomplish any number of fine-grain tasks that might previously have required the exactitude of a skilled human.

77. Graphcore

Graphcore makes what it calls the Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), a processor specifically for machine learning used to build high-performance machines. The IPU’s unique architecture allows developers to run current machine learning models orders of magnitude faster and undertake entirely new types of work not possible with current technologies.

78. Deepmind

Acquired by Alphabet, Deepmind is a research firm that focuses on AI research, covering everything from climate change to healthcare and finance. Its goal is to build “safe” AI that evolves in its abilities to solve problems. The company is based in London and recruits heavily from Oxford and Cambridge, which are leading universities in Europe for AI and ML research.

79. Domino Data Lab

Certainly an AI company with a certain buzz about it, Domino is a SaaS solution that helps tech and data professionals program and test AI models. Think of it as a gathering place, an aggregation of sorts, for the AI community. Expect Domino to grow rapidly in the years ahead. Based in San Francisco, the company touts itself as a platform for data science.

80. OpenAI

OpenAI is a nonprofit research firm that operates under an open-source type of model to allow other institutions and researchers to freely collaborate, making its patents and research open to the public. The founders say they are motivated in part by concerns about existential risk from artificial general intelligence. ChatGPT is a recent part of OpenAI that allows users to generate text from poetry to short stories. However, despite OpenAI being nonprofit, ChatGPT is now its own for-profit company.

See more: 5 Top Trends in Sentiment Analysis

Energy/Environment AI Companies

AI is being used by companies to better plan real-world projects and efficiently use resources as well as produce both energy and food..

Here are eight of the top energy and environmental-focused AI companies:

81. SenSat

SenSat builds digital copies of physical environments and applies AI modeling to understand the parameters of that environment and provide valuable feedback. For example, it can give spatial and volume statistics about a roadway that is about to undergo repair work. Boosting SenSat’s fortunes, Tencent led a $10 million investment in the company.

82. Blue River Technology

Blue River Technology is a subsidiary of Deere & Co. that combines artificial intelligence and computer vision to build smart farm tech, a growing need given population growth. The company’s See & Spray technology can detect individual plants and apply herbicide to the weeds only. This is designed to reduce the number of chemicals sprayed by up to 90% over traditional methods.

83. Stem

Stem is a veteran energy storage firm that has adopted AI to help automate energy management. It uses its industry-leading AI platform, Athena, to determine when to charge energy storage systems and when to draw on them. Athena focuses on energy forecasting and automated control.

84. Xanadu

Based in Canada, Xanadu is a quantum hardware and technology outfit that is developing a type of quantum computer based on photonic technology. Instead of transmitting energy via electrons, Xanadu’s system employs laser light to move data. That means no more energy-hungry, overheating electric machines, among other advantages.

85. Ambyint

A Canadian-based startup, Ambyint, is working towards reducing cost within the oil exploration market. Amybyint plans to do this by using AI-powered management with the ability to analyze platforms with on-site equipment. Ambyint’s AI management works to deliver real-time control and optimize a company’s production.

86. VIA

VIA, a startup in the United States, uses AI to connect smart meters, drones, and sensors on energy assets that are processed and checked to predict energy demands, grid loads, outages, and how much renewable energy is generated by solar panels and wind turbines. This is done by using machine learning algorithms to process all the information needed.

87. Siemens

Munich-based Siemens focuses on areas like energy, electrification, digitalization, and automation. They also work to develop resource-saving and energy-efficient technologies and are considered a leading provider of devices and systems for medical diagnosis, power generation, and transmission. The Siemens website also refers to “AI at the beer garden.”

88. Zymergen

AI biotech company Zymergen describes itself as a “biofacturer.” One of their offerings is called Hyline, a bio-based polyimide film. Their work includes applications for pharmaceutical companies, agriculture, and industrial uses. The company is based in Emeryville, California.

To learn more: Energy in AI

Robotics AI Companies

Robotics companies are working to integrate AI into machines to support companies and their workers through automation, with everything from manufacturing to customer service.

Here are seven of the top robotics AI companies

89. Bossa Nova Robotics

The robots imagined by 1950s futurists were tin people that could walk and talk. It hasn’t quite turned out that way yet), but Bossa Nova Robotics is using AI to make today’s robots more effective. Indeed, modern robots are rarely shaped like humans; Bossa Nova’s robots resemble tall vacuum cleaners. Ironically, Bossa Nova started as a robotic toy maker but now has full-scale robots in retailers, like Walmart. The robots roll up and down the shelves, spotting inventory problems and allowing cost savings on human employment.

90. CloudMinds

CloudMinds is an AI cloud robotics company. Founded in Irvine, California, CloudMinds uses cloud AI to create humanoid robots that can be helpful to both companies and average households. CloudMinds set a goal that by 2025, they will create affordable robots for customers and reach out internationally to help people and markets everywhere.

91. Vicarious

With backing from some real tech heavyweights — Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg — Vicarious’s goal is nothing less than to develop a robot brain that can think like a human. It hasn’t been particularly forthcoming with details, but its AI robots, geared for industrial automation, are known to learn as they do more tasks.

92. HiSilicon

Running AI is exceptionally data-intensive,  the more data the better,  and so today’s chipmakers, like Intel and Nvidia, are star players. Add to that list HiSilicon. The company fabricated the first AI chip for mobile units. Impressively, the chip accomplishes tasks like high-speed language translation and facial recognition.

93. UiPath

Arguably the top vendor in the robotic process automation sector, UiPath makes an enterprise software platform that includes tools for robot licensing, provisioning, scheduling, monitoring, and alerting. Its robots do the mundane work of communication between legacy apps, so developers can focus on new AI-oriented apps.

94. Smart Eye

Arguably, the two final frontiers in artificial intelligence are ethics and emotion. Can software decide between right and wrong, in a moral sense? And can software “feel” emotions? Affectiva is dealing with this latter issue by using AI to help systems understand the emotions in a human face and conversation. Affectiva was acquired by Smart Eye, a supplier of driver monitoring systems for automakers.

95. Qualcomm

Driving the AI revolution with the highly capable smartphone chips it makes, Qualcomm leverages a signal processor for image and sound capabilities. Qualcomm acquired NUVIA, a competitive CPU and technology design company, ultimately enhancing CPU opportunities for the future. Given its market size and power, it’s likely that Qualcomm will continue to be a key driver of AI functionality in the all-important consumer device market.

For more: 5 Top Trends in AI Robotics

Entertainment AI Companies

The entertainment industry is using AI to advance augmented reality (AR) experiences and voice-based apps through natural language processing (NLP) as well as to screen social media content.

Here are five of the top entertainment AI companies:

96. Discord

The gaming chat app company Discord acquired Ubiquity6, an augmented reality startup. Ubiquity6 has built a mobile app that enables augmented reality (AR) for several people at once. Users see and interact with objects presented by the fully dimensioned visual world of the Ubiquity app, immersing themselves in a creative or educational environment.

97. Facebook

While Facebook is certainly better known in other areas as one of the largest social media networks in the world, the company is making great strides in its AI capabilities, especially in self-teaching for its news feed algorithms. Most significantly, the Facebook team has started using AI to screen for hate speech, fake news, and potentially illegal actions across posts on the site.

98. Tencent

One of the largest social media companies to come out of China, Tencent has an advanced AI lab that develops tools to process information across its ecosystem, including NLP, news aggregators, and facial recognition. They also have one of China’s top video streaming platforms, Tencent Music. A giant in the field, they fund several AI efforts.

99. SoundHound

SoundHound started as a Shazam-like song recognition app called Midomi, but it has expanded to answering complex voice prompts like Siri. Instead of converting language into text like most virtual assistants, the app’s AI combines voice recognition and language understanding in a single step.

100. AIBrain

AIBrain is an artificial intelligence company that builds AI solutions for smartphones and robotics applications. Its products include AICoRE, the AI agent, iRSP, an intelligent robot software platform, and Futurable, a future simulation AI game where every character is a fully autonomous AI. The focus of their work is to develop artificial intelligence infused with the human skill sets of problem solving, learning, and memory.

To learn more about AI in entertainment

Bottom Line: Top AI Companies Continue to Expand AI’s Capabilities

Entire industries are being reshaped by AI. For example, RPA companies are working to completely advance their software with machine learning and AI to improve their automation capabilities. AI in healthcare is changing patient care in major ways, such as using AI to increase the scale and efficiency of medical imaging to analyze and diagnose patients.

Companies in various  industries are increasing their interest and investment in AI, hoping to propel internal operations and customer experiences forward by using machine learning and in some cases, deep learning to apply big data to enhance products, create new products, and solve everyday business use cases.

Microsoft developed an NOS based on Linux and used it as the networking backbone to make Azure agile and efficient. Microsoft later donated its Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) to the Open Compute Project.

SONiC takes the original components of networking and breaks it up into smaller plug-and-play capabilities that can be deployed separately as containers. Third-party applications can similarly be embedded as additional containers in the NOS, and an NOS can be installed directly on to the bare metal of switches and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

Experts expect the SONiC project to become the Linux of NOS. This would make Dell’s Enterprise SONiC Distribution the equivalent of RedHat’s Linux distribution — open-source software with enterprise-class support.

However, Dell also directly contributes to the open-source development of SONiC. Dell’s director of product management and strategy for emerging networking technologies, Saurabh Kapoor, noted to The Register that “Dell has contributed over a million lines of code and five thousand defect fixes” to the SONiC open-source project.

See below to learn all about Dell Technologies Enterprise SONiC Distribution and where it stands in the network operating system market:

Review of Dell Technologies Enterprise SONiC Distribution

• Dell Enterprise SONiC Distribution and the network operating system market
• Key features
• Key benefits
• Use cases
• Differentiators
• Ratings
• Pricing
• Conclusions

Dell Enterprise SONiC Distribution and the network operating system market

The network operating system market includes NOS software itself as well as services for integration, maintenance, training, and consulting. NOS overlaps with the data center networking market, which includes software and services as well as hardware.

Maximize Market Research estimates that the NOS market will be valued at $15.2 billion in 2027, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41.2%.

Dell commissioned a study by IDC that predicts: $2 billion of 2024 revenue will be from sales of data center switches embedded with SONiC; SONiC may become the equivalent of Linux for the NOS market.

By embedding Enterprise SONiC directly into the hardware, Dell will be competing in the data center networking market, which Grand View Research estimated to be valued at $19.9 billion in 2018 and growing at a CAGR of 11%. By 2021, Arizton estimated the data center networking market to be $24.8 billion, with a CAGR of 6.22%.

Dell’s has several competitors in the NOS market: such as, Alibaba, Arista Networks, Cisco Systems, Edgewater Networks, HPE (Aruba), HUAWEI, Infinera, Intel, IP Fusion, Juniper Networks, Niral Networks, NXP Semiconductors, PLVision, Tencent, and Wind River Systems. Participating in the data center networking market includes competitors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Broadcom, Equinix, Hitachi Data Systems, and VMware.

Key features

Dell’s Enterprise SONiC Distribution is the first commercial version of SONiC with enterprise features and support. This solution provides the flexibility of open-source architectures for those without the ability or interest to customize open-source products on their own.

Full technical specifications are available, but an overview of the key features include:

• Open-source technology
• Centralized management platform
  • Adopts and supports open and industry standards, like OpenConfig, gNMI, REST
  • Centralized, intuitive, and holistic command-line interface (CLI)
• Disaggregated, containerized microservices architecture
• Network functionality (Layer 2 and Layer 3 protocols):
  • Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
  • Remote direct memory access (RDMA)
  • Support for Power over Ethernet (PoE), PoE+, UPOE; 802.1x support (port security); and symmetric and asymmetric Virtual Extensible Large Area Networks (VXLANs)
• Quality of service differentiation
  • Class of service
  • Differentiated services to code point to traffic class mapping
  • Random early discard
• Manageability, automation, and monitoring
  • Zero-touch provisioning
  • IPv4/IPv6 management
  • Role-based access control
  • Out-of-band management
• Support for SmartNIC/DPUs that offload networking and security functions from server CPUs to handle encryption and decryption, firewalling, packet inspection
• Flexible support from the data center to edge devices:
  • Encompasses retail systems, kiosks, security cameras
  • Connects mini data centers with core data centers
  • Enables machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and edge IoT (Internet of Things) combinations
  • Version 4.0 supports branch and data center integration
  • Version 4.x will support guest and voice VLAN
• Integrated into Dell EMC PowerSwitch Open Networking hardware
  • Full hardware support, including LEDs, power, environmentals

Key benefits

Customer seeking an NOS solution such as Dell’s Enterprise SONiC Distribution seek the following key benefits:

Improved security

Patching together separate security profiles for multiple data centers and a host of edge devices can introduce gaps and inconsistencies in implementation as well as increase the difficulty for upgrades and patching. Deploying open-source NOS solutions can create additional work for security teams to search through documentation to locate all of the potential settings and configuration options.

Dell’s Enterprise SONiC Distributions are sold pre-hardened for improved security for customers that want enterprise-ready, enterprise-supported, and enterprise-backed solutions. Enterprise SONiC provides a single solution to encompass multiple data centers and edge devices with support for port security and private/voice VLANs.

As a Linux-based tool, Linux security teams will be familiar with the code and can manage infrastructure security with minimal training. Dell’s support infrastructure can also supply guidance and consulting.

Improved uptime

Even the most sound hardware will need servicing or replacement from time to time, but customers have become intolerant of downtime. NOS solutions can automatically migrate connections and workloads to deliver zero downtime for in-service updates and upgrade the entire network all at once.

Rapid innovation and growth

As an open-source solution, many third-party programmers add features to SONiC that can be deployed quickly in a containerized Dell Enterprise SONiC Distribution deployment. The supported architecture also allows for highly scalable infrastructure that can resize quickly and automatically.

Unified network operating system

A single NOS solution provides one fabric for consolidating multiple data centers, both cloud and on-premises, and edge resources as one network with a single common toolset to manage them. This provides consistent security, monitoring, and automation across the infrastructure. Using Enterprise SONiC Deployment supports modern network architectures’ cloud-centric network operations and software-defined networking (SDN).

Use cases

SONiC NOS has found adoption among tier-two cloud operators, communication service providers, and some large enterprises, according to IDC.  For hyperscalers and larger enterprises, the two most common use cases are leaf-spine Clos data center fabrics:

• Layer 3 BGP underlay providing hyperscale data center networks for enterprises
• VXLAN tunneling of Layer 2 traffic over a Layer 3 Border Gateway Protocol Ethernet VPN (BGP-EVPN) networks to support traditional and modern applications, including microservices and those orchestrated with Kubernetes

Many data centers seek network switches pre-loaded with SONiC or SONiC-capable devices, and Gartner predicts as high as 40% of organizations running large data centers will use SONiC. Although open-source software provides many benefits, the largest companies also want service and support and will turn to branded solutions with enterprise backing, such as Dell Enterprise SONiC Distribution.

team.blue 

As a growing managed hosting provider, team.blue’s 1,500 employees support over two million customers in more than 10 countries. team.blue needed to replace its inflexible network built on proprietary technology that was difficult to learn.

Their IT infrastructure team sought an open-source networking option that could support a variety of third-party vendors and would be actively updated.

“We believe SONiC is the future of networking,” says Michael Munk Lassen, head of technology for infrastructure for team.blue in the Nordics. 

“Given its Microsoft origins, SONiC is continually being maintained and updated, and it’s used in Microsoft Azure and other big cloud providers. … Its ability to do API-based orchestration, telemetry, and all that stuff is very important to us. We recognize this isn’t unique to SONiC, because many vendors can do it. … some just choose to make it harder than others.”

team.blue also benefited from the enterprise-class support provided by Dell.

“Not only has Dell Technologies provided us an insane amount of confidence in the product, but they’ve supported and enabled us, so that we can move forward faster and easier than we normally could without their help,” Lassen says.

Differentiators

While based on a free, open-source NOS solution, customers can choose Dell Enterprise SONiC Distribution based upon the following differentiators:

Brand power

Large enterprises need assurance that the technology providing the infrastructure for their integrated data centers will work effectively and as advertised. Selecting a solution backed by a large corporation such as Dell provides assurance simply based upon Dell’s brand reputation and industry longevity.

Additionally, customers can be provided with guarantees that their solution will run on Dell PowerSwitch platforms and integrate with other Dell products. Moreover, Dell’s size and reputation also reduces concerns regarding the supplier’s financial instability for the non-technical executives that must authorize the financial investment.

Enterprise solution

Dell’s Enterprise SONiC Distribution is based on an open-source tool already tested in hyperscale environments, such as Microsoft’s Azure. More importantly, enterprises can rely on Dell’s enterprise-level support for both hardware and software in 165 countries and through 60,000+ partner professionals.

From full-service transitions to advisory consultations, customers can obtain as much or as little help as needed. Customers can also obtain training, hand-on labs, and technical and field support teams.

Dell can ship network switches already preloaded with SONiC to accelerate a customer’s deployment and expansion. Dell Enterprise SONiC Distribution also has additional support not available in the open-source version, such as scale-out VXLAN EVPN, unified management framework, ansible automation, and silicon telemetry.

Pricing

Dell Enterprise SONiC Distribution can be obtained either as a Cloud or an Enterprise bundle, but there is no difference in price between the two. Dell offers subscriptions of one, three, or five years, with discounts applicable for the longer terms.

Enterprise SONiC Distribution has two tiers of pricing: Standard and Premium. While Dell does not publish pricing specifics, it notes that each tier is priced at three different platform speeds: 1/10 gigabit Ethernet (GbE), 25/100 GbE, and 400 GbE.

Conclusions

Organizations seeking network operating system solutions need light-weight tools to consolidate control of their network infrastructure across highly complex and often hyperscaled environments. Open-source solutions provide great flexibility, but larger companies often need enterprise-level support for deployment, development, and trouble-shooting. Organizations can select Dell Enterprise SONiC Distribution with confidence of receiving enterprise-class support for a product developed by Microsoft, tested in Azure, and further developed by Dell’s networking experts.

Minsaid and Google Cloud formed an expanded strategic alliance to jointly offer Spanish public and private sector organizations sovereign cloud solutions, according to the companies last month. 

The sovereign cloud will be intended to allow clients to accelerate their digital transformation, while meeting their security, privacy, and sovereignty needs.

Minsait will provide its expertise in external encryption key management, security services, cloud infrastructure management services, and local support as well as ongoing data center auditing.

Google Cloud will offer the elasticity and “agility” of a public and hybrid cloud based on open-source technology, enabling Spanish organizations to innovate autonomously, without vendor lock-in. 

Google Cloud will ensure data is encrypted at rest and in transit. It will also make data location available in a new Google Cloud region that is scheduled to open in Madrid in 2022. 

Minsait and Google Cloud will provide the sovereign cloud offering to Spanish organizations across various sectors, including health care, automotive, public transportation, government, and more.

“Together, we bring competitiveness and innovation to the Spanish market with a sustainable approach, underpinned with a commitment to data sovereignty,” said Carlos Beldarrain, head of data cloud, Minsait.

Isaac Hernández, country manager, Google Cloud Spain, said “accelerated digitization should come with the highest levels of security, privacy, and sovereignty.”

Carme Artigas, Spain’s secretary of state for digitization and artificial intelligence, said the development of a digital economy and sovereignty “necessarily imply that citizens and organizations have control of their data and benefit from the availability of a sovereign cloud in Europe.”

SAS Viya is intended to improve confident decisions by application developers and data scientists by automating model development, deployment, and governance, according to SAS last month.

For instance, open-source users can develop an API-first strategy, fuel a data preparation routine with machine learning (ML), or improve interoperability.

Open-source users can learn more about how SAS works with open source by downloading the e-book “Drive Analytic Innovation Through SAS and Open Source Integration” and by visiting developer.sas.com.

Using open source to resolve challenges and create business value requires a “structured, unified framework for orchestration support,” SAS said.

SAS EVP and CTO Bryan Harris said simplifying and automating data collection and model deployment are “critical, regardless of the technologies you choose.” 

“When you figure this out for your ecosystem, the payoff is huge,” Harris said. “SAS Viya can help get you there.”  

Organizations pull in SAS Viya for various open source needs, including:

• Harnessing its cloud-native, high-performance architecture
• Building models faster using parallel processing for endless scalability
• Automated feature engineering with ML-powered data preparation
• Establishing model governance and management processes for SAS and open source
• Using Python or R directly with SAS or integrating SAS into applications using REST APIs
• Deploying models developed in SAS or open source to different environments, such as cloud, containers, streaming or on-site edge devices
• Writing and running native Python code directly in the S

Acquia made updates last quarter across its three-part Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP): comprised of the newly launched Acquia Experience Platform; Acquia Cloud Platform; and Acquia Marketing Cloud, according to the company.

The updates to Acquia Open DXP were developed to help organizations efficiently assemble packaged business capabilities into new digital experiences and services for customers and employees. 

The open source and “composable” architecture is set up to allow enterprise creators to build data-driven digital experiences faster and at scale as well as experiment and adapt to customer needs.

Acquia’s vision is “a world where brands can personalize everything,” said Dries Buytaert, co-founder and CTO, Acquia. 

The DXP offering by Acquia is a 2021 Gartner “Magic Quadrant” leader in the DXP market.

The company has over 4,000 clients.

See more: Should Your Business Switch to Open Source?

Acquia Experience Platform and Acquia Cloud Platform

The new Acquia Experience Platform runs in the updated Acquia Cloud Platform, a Kubernetes-native, auto-scaling cloud platform for digital experiences. 

The new platform, part of the larger DXP by the company, includes several components:

Acquia CMS

• Content management system with latest capabilities from Drupal community 
• Based on learnings from thousands of deployments
• Pre-built content types, roles and permissions 

See more: The Best Open Source Content Management Systems

Acquia Site Studio

• No-code tool available within enterprise CMS
• Build websites 
• Pre-set components and design templates for brand consistency

Acquia Cloud IDE

• Purpose-built development environment for Drupal   

Acquia Marketing Cloud 

Acquia updated the Marketing Cloud offering in its DXP to help marketers tailor campaigns to their customers through data and machine learning:

• Unified analytics: Personalization for an understanding of customers, business KPIs and performance of marketing campaigns
• Machine learning models: Customers can be segmented into multiple machine learning clusters
• Reporting enhancements: Campaign performance reporting for insights into results
• Compliance workflows: Consumer data erasure request UI and API to honor GDPR and CCPA deletion requests and confirm deletion requests were handled properly

DXP market

The digital experience platform market is expected to grow from USD $7.9 billion in 2019 to USD $13.9 billion by 2024, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12% during the period, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets.

The top geographic market driving the growth is North America, due to the “rapid adoption of advanced technologies,” the report says.

Several major factors are driving the demand by marketers: serving immediate customer needs; reducing customer churn rate; cloud-based solutions; and big data analytics.

DXP companies

These are some of the other top companies in the DXP market:

• Adobe
• Oracle
• SAP
• IBM
• Microsoft
• Salesforce
• OpenText
• SDL
• Sitecore
• Episerver

See more: 35 Top Open Source Companies

Back then, Microsoft, just like Apple and IBM, was particularly proprietary and fiercely competitive.  

But in the early 2000s, Microsoft started to change its external behavior. Instead of challenging interoperability, they embraced it. Instead of challenging open source and Linux, they became one of the biggest advocates. And last week at Microsoft Build, it was clear that this has also had a positive impact on the company.  

Microsoft is a company folks want to work in tech. 

Why Open Source Makes For Better Companies

The old way of doing things in the tech industry was primarily defined by a practice that companies like Apple still have called lock-in.

On the surface, it creates a highly proprietary ecosystem, requires you to buy exclusively from the vendor using lock-in and where the switching cost to another vendor is so high, it’s hard to switch.  

It is a system that promotes a heavy us-vs.-them behavior pattern. This external behavior seems to promote a similar independent internal behavior as well.  

But I watched IBM change when they switched to open source and embraced a more collaborative approach to business. Customer satisfaction came up, customer loyalty came up, the IBM image improved, and, most importantly, people told me the company became a better place to work. With IBM, I thought this was correlation, not causation, but after watching Microsoft and talking to some of their leading internal developers, it now appears more like causation.  

See more: How IBM Has Changed To Become What It Once Was

Intuitively Obvious

In thinking about this cause and effect, it would seem intuitively obvious that if you promote a behavior pattern where you are constantly trying to get the most out of customers, partners and suppliers, it will result in interpersonal behavior that is sometimes adversarial. 

If you institutionalize this behavior, you’ll promote the behavior. And people don’t just interact externally. They interact internally as well.

Companies using lock-in commonly live with a winner-take-all, me-vs.-the-world attitude.

But open source is a seed change, and it promotes cooperation and collaboration, which is a far less aggressive mindset. Instead of thinking of ways others have to lose, you think of ways for you to win. You approach the problem differently, looking for the common benefit and recognizing a loss will hurt you both. And it has to be a better company to work at as well.  

Wrapping Up

After listening to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and talking to amazing people like Sarah Novotny and Scott Hanselman (who did one of the best demos I’ve ever seen), I think that Microsoft is a better company than they were decades ago.  

I think there is no more noble purpose than creating collaborative and cooperative environments. It is a testament to companies like IBM and Microsoft that their switch from lock-in to open source helps them be companies that people are proud to work with and for.  

See more: Dell APEX: Our Path Back To The Old IBM Service Model

First, I want to be absolutely clear about something. I have been a full time Linux on the desktop user for well over a decade. It has been and will always be my preferred platform for desktop and server usage. It does just what I need and I appreciate that.

All of that said however, the “masses” haven’t gravitated towards Linux for their desktop usage like I had hoped. In this article, I’m going to explore the reasons why I think this has happened.

Inside the Failure of Desktop Linux

1) Linux isn’t pre-installed – No matter how much we may debate it, having Windows pre-installed on PCs means that’s what people are likely to end up using. In order for someone to move over to Linux on the desktop, there must be a clear reason to do so. There is the problem. The only time I’ve personally seen users make the switch over to Linux from Windows comes down to frustration with Windows or a desire to advance their skills into an IT field.

My own Linux story, for example, was a mixture of the two examples above. First off, I was just done with Windows. I had already been dabbling with Linux at the time I completely switched, but I become disenfranchised with the Microsoft way of doing things. So for me, the switch to Linux was based out of frustration.

Had I not experienced any frustrations with Windows, I might not have ever thought to jump ship over to an alternative. Even when I built my own PCs myself, the OS offered at computer stores was Windows only. This is a huge hurdle for Linux adoption on the desktop.

2) Linux freedom vs convenience – It’s been my experience that people expect a user experience that’s consistent and convenience. How one defines this depends on the individual user. For some, it’s a matter of familiarity or perceived dependability. For more advanced PC users, a consistent convenience may mean a preferred workflow or specific applications.

The greater takeaway is that when people are aware of other operating systems, they will usually stick with that they’ve used the longest. This presents a problem when getting people to try Linux. When using a desktop platform for a long time, you develop habits and expectations that don’t lend themselves well to change.

3) Linux lacks legacy software – Expanding on the idea of convenience, another challenge is enticing those who have legacy applications only found on Windows. Even if we consider suggesting Linux-specific software alternatives, we’re expecting users to change existing workflows. I’ve found most people to be resistant to this. Not because one type of application is better or worse than another. After all, this is a matter of personal perspective. No, the real issue is that users have existing workflows, file types and overall application expectations. Switching away from this doesn’t always go all that well.

4) Linux networking isn’t for the faint of heart – Networking in Linux is reliable, however, it’s reliant on understanding the differences between Windows and Linux networking. In Linux, both Samba and NFS file sharing are conf file based. And while it’s not difficult to learn, it’s not going to be as straightforward as you might find with Windows.

On the flip side, connecting to the network itself is incredibly simple. Wired or wireless, modern Linux distros handle connecting to a network in a seamless manner. But it’s unfortunate that even with the most newbie friendly distros, you need to drop to a command prompt to create a Samba password or edit a conf file for an NFS share.

5) Linux video card support is tricky – From a basic perspective, graphics card support works just fine in Linux. However, things become a bit muddled when you bundle in Wayland vs X. Two different display server options mean different benefits and downsides when choosing one vs another. Some distros use Wayland as the default, which means some X reliant applications won’t work.

Then there are the laptops with shared graphics. Laptops with NVIDIA/Intel graphics tend to be the biggest challenges with some Linux distros. I’ve found this to be one of the most common issues facing newer Linux users. Granted, graphics switching has gotten a lot better over the years. But it’s still distro dependent and sometimes upgrades can throw new issues into the mix.

Last, there is the issue of choosing the right driver type. In some distros, a FoSS friendly driver is set by default. But in other distros, a proprietary option is the default. On the surface this doesn’t seem like an issue, but it does add to some confusion.

6) Linux PulseAudio sound server is confusing – Linux audio is actually pretty good. However, the PulseAudio sound server sitting on top of the audio architecture is out of touch and out of sync. The fact that I can adjust the volume with PulseAudio yet if the sound device is muted in alsamixer it must be dealt with at the alsamixer level blows my mind. If you’re going to layer a sound server on top of ALSA, make darn sure it syncs up its adjustments between sound server and architecture.

Making matters worse is the fact that most popular desktop environments don’t fully take advantage of what PulseAudio has to offer. Most desktops lack Recording and Playback tabs in the volume control settings. When you launch a Hangouts session or play music, you might wish to route said audio to different playback devices. With most distros, this requires you to use padevchooser.

7) Linux lacks triple A gaming titles – Linux gaming has come a long way. Thanks to Valve, GoG.com and others, Linux gaming has evolved tremendously in recent years. The title availability and desire from developers to include Linux in their operating support has been fantastic. That said, there is still a lot of improvement to be had with Linux gaming.

I’m not sure what the solution is to get more game developers on board with porting games to Linux, but for now I think we’ll have to continue voting with our wallets. Sadly, I continue to see Linux users justifying their “need” for Windows games and thus, dual-booting their operating systems. This is a cop out and frustrates me more than anything. No one needs Windows gaming, it’s a choice, not a requirement for sustaining life.

8) Linux desktop environments – As much as I love the choice presented with Linux on the desktop, I can understand how some people might feel overwhelmed. It can be challenging to select a specific distro based on a desktop environment. So being able to choose and discover new desktop environments is exciting. It can absolutely be confusing for some newcomers.

The reason for this is most people are coming from the limited world of Windows or OS X. You have a release and that’s what you get. There is no choice, unless you wish to use an older release of those proprietary OS’.

9) Linux distros vary in quality – Most popular Linux distros are fantastic. Unfortunately there are distros that are less than fantastic. Some of them are downright bad. Without labeling some and leaving out others, suffice it to say that it’s not enough to merely choose a distro based on popularity.

My advice is to look at distros with a strong backing. Whether or not this is a strong community backing or corporate backing depends on what you’re looking for.

10) Linux is overshadowed by ChromeOS – ChromeOS is an incredibly limited OS yet has gained in popularity thanks to cheap, easy to use laptops and its deep integration into Google services. Sadly, printing and scanning remains a joke with this OS. Yes, it’s doable…but not without jumping through hoops. Despite this, ChromeOS is based on Gentoo Linux and perhaps this is as close Linux will get to being a mainstream desktop OS.