Open Source business model being adopted by all

Over the past couple of years many companies have adopted the open source business model in regards to how they market their software offering. These companies include MindTouch, Sugar CRM, Alfresco, Wordpress, and MySQL to name a few. The business model is based around releasing the software to the community and adding services/support for the product. Services can range from different functionality to complete customization. Recently businesses that didn't start in the open source community are starting to understand the benefits of releasing their software as it allows greater growth for the development of their product, allows bugs to be found easier and quicker, and also increase market share and awareness. The most recent company to add open source to their business model is VMware

VMware has a great offering as it is, but open sourcing their platform will help increase adoption of their product and make it easier for people to develop on top of the software. Watch out for other business to do exactly the same.