10 Open Source Companies to Watch

Company name: XAware

Founded: XAware's open source project was launched in November 2007.

Location: Colorado Springs, Colo.

What does the company offer? XAware offers open source data integration software for creating and managing composite data services.

Why is the company worth watching? Data integration is a must have in today's distributed networks, and XAware is throwing out the old proprietary software model it had in favor of an open platform based on the same technology with years of development and testing behind it.

How did the company get its start? Kirstan Vandersluis, who helped develop and patent XAware's product suite, co-developed an XML-based data services application and began full-time work on the product in March 2000.

How did the company get its name? XAware's name is a recognition of XML, the markup language that makes it possible to read, write and transfer data between different sources.

CEO and background: Tim Harvey. Previously, Harvey was senior vice president of sales and marketing at S1. He also was president and COO of SynQuest. Harvey, a budding triathlete, graduated from the University of Florida with a business administration bachelor's degree in finance and served four years as an officer in the United States Marine Corps.

Funding: XAware has secured three rounds of funding totaling $26.4 million. The most recent ($7.4 million) was led by vSpring Capital. Other venture capital firms include GMT Capital, Sequel Ventures, ITU Ventures and BMJP LLC.

Who's using the product: Customers include AXA, ING, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Genworth, Synovus, Northrop Gruman and Hire a Hero.

Company name: SnapLogic

Founded: 2006

Location: San Mateo, Calif.

What does the company offer? SnapLogic offers an open source data integration framework for integrating data on both sides of the enterprise firewall. Recent additions include links to Salesforce.com and SugarCRM.

Why is it worth watching? The company lets users integrate software-as-a-service data with data behind the firewall on the back of reusable "snap-together" components and a browser-based design tool to create those integrations.

How did the company get its start? Gaurav Dhillon, the founder and former CEO of Informatica, and Mike Pittaro, Informatica's director of customer services, recognized the need for software for many large corporate integration tasks.

How did the company get its name? SnapLogic is evocative of the browser-based, drag-and-drop interface of SnapLogic Designer, the graphical tool used to create data integration pipelines using the SnapLogic framework.

CEO and background: Before taking over SnapLogic, Chris Marino was an investor and advisor to several start-ups, as well as the founder and CEO of server load-balancing vendor Resonate.

Funding: $2.5 million Series A round of venture capital from Dhillon Capital.

Who's using the product? The company has publicly announced one customer, KQED Public Broadcasting.