A recent survey hit my radar this weekend and, I must say, I’m not that surprised by the results. Contrary to my usual columns, I won’t bury the lede: Accenture polled 300 large organizations in both the public and private sectors and—surprise!—found that half of them are “fully committed” to using open-source software in their businesses.

To be honest, I expected results more in line from the Zenoss survey I ran across this weekend, which notes that 98 percent of all enterprise companies use open-source software in some capacity. But I’ll leave that difference up to nomenclature / polling differences. The real juice of Accenture’s story is buried in a single, meager sentence somewhere toward the bottom of the press release: less that 29 percent of surveyed companies intend to shovel their open-source contributions/modifications/development back into the community.

Wait a second.

What?

What a year for Google! Though I suppose one could really say that almost any year. Not to sound like a wide-eyed admirer or uninformed fanboy, but it seems as if Google always has something grand up its sleeve. But instead of waxing nostalgic about all of "The Goog's" fancy Web-based services or search refinements or what-have-you, I think it's important to note just how dramatically Google has made its mark on the open-source world in 2009.

Yes, I'm talking about Chrome. Or Android. Or Chrome-Android. You know, those two independent-but-not-really operating systems that are different yet similar enough to warrant Google splitting them with a wink-and-a-nod that they'll likely be combined at some grand point in the future.

Huh?

I'll simplify. Android is the mobile version of Google's open-source OS. Chrome is the desktop/laptop/netbook/who-knows version. Sort-of. Android is in the process of spilling over to tablets and has already made the jump to netbooks. Chrome is currently under-wraps at Google, save for the open-source variant Chromium OS which is free for the taking, building, and installing.

Confused? I wouldn't be surprised. For all the intelligence packed into the dark recesses of Google's worldwide campuses, the company doesn't have a walk-in-the-park path to victory in the mobile, desktop, or laptop markets with its bevy of open-source operating systems. I've identified five points that could turn Google's fortune--and you'll find these after the jump!

Enterprise business applications still outnumber all other open-source projects, according to a survey of 380 Linux developers by market research firm Evans Data Corporation.  But open-source is on the move away from traditional enterprise infrastructures and into the Cloud--the concept of data being stored "on the Internet" without a single entity or specific server to call home.  Google's App Engine takes top billing as a Cloud provider, with 28 percent of Cloud-ready developers opting to use this service versus 15 percent for Amazon's Elastic Compute.

That's great and all, but where are open-source developers making their money?  We've got the answer after the jump, but here's a quick hint: It's the exact same way that no-name application and game developers are cashing in on a critical consumer platform.