Like CRM over the past decade, it appears open source concepts are taking root at the educational level. According to a new report by Datamonitor, primary and secondary schools and universities will spend $489.9 million on open source software by 2012, up from $286 million now. Besides cost justifications, institutions also cited more control over application development and increasing government interest in open source as driving factors.

Besides the obvious financial and IT-related advantages schools and universities will receive, when combined with initiatives such as these, open source is laying a firm foundation for success down the road. The CRM industry has benefited tremendously from vendors opening their software and industry best practices to business schools throughout the country. Executive CRM programs at institutions like Baylor University laid the foundation years ago for the reverberating impact that CRM practices are having on corporate America today. Marketing and sales organizations are better off because of it, and I’m sure the same will be said of open source years from now thanks to Google-like initiatives as well.