Matt Asay recently wrote about the differences between European and U.S. adoption of open source. In a nutshell, Asay says the European governments are leading the adoption of open-source software, as they tend to respect open source more than their private-sector brethren. In North America, on the other hand, open source adoption is primarily driven by businesses seeking to cut costs.

I found the timing interesting as I came across an article about the Dutch government choosing to standardize on open source software. That said, I think you’ll find many of the same similarities when it comes to CRM adoption in Europe. Over the years I’ve come across numerous industry reports indicating that governments in the U.K., Germany, and France are one of the biggest IT spenders and purchasers of CRM, driven largely by the same reasons they adopt open source: flexibility and innovation.

So for those open source and CRM vendors looking to do business globally, feel free to take a page from the other guy’s book, because there are differences.

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