Microsoft:
Visual Studio isn’t going away anytime soon, despite delays for the next version. Microsoft sings the songs that make the developers sing and dance with a smile.
Apache Software Foundation:
Tomcat, Axis, Harmony, Xerces, ANT, Maven, ActiveMQ, Jakarta, Geronimo, Struts… the list goes on and on, and the projects just get better and better.
Eclipse Foundation:
From open source project to religious movement: The foundation not only laid the groundwork for years to come, but also fostered a development community that adds new projects faster than Oracle buys competitors.
Free Software Foundation:
With GPLv3 still winding its way to completion, the FSF helped to keep the discussions going, and turned 2006 into the most introspective year yet for free software.
Google:
Its Web Toolkit alone makes this unstoppable juggernaut of innovation a corporate development player. Google’s online offerings make it the headquarters for mashups, gashups and post-ups, thanks to code repositories, APIs and online office tools.
IBM:
Corporate software begins and ends with IBM tools. Whether it’s Eclipse on the front, Rational at the back or WebSphere under the hood, IBM knows more about software than most nation-states.
Intel:
Compilers and tools that link directly to the processor just can’t be beat by offthe-shelf solutions. And as those processors add cores, it means developers have horsepower to spare.
Salesforce.com:
Disruptive technology as a mission statement. With Salesforce.com in the water, no fish is safe from having its lunch eaten out from under its nose.
Novell:
Love or hate the agreement with Microsoft, Novell is in the news, on the Web, and now all over the GPLv3.
Sun Microsystems:
Despite its characteristic shrugs from time to time, Sun still has some of the brainiest buildings in Silicon Valley. With an open source Java, it’ll soon be tapping external brains as well.
