Open-source companies to watch

How did the company get its start? When co-founder Lars Trieloff wrote a book about the markup language DocBook XML, he realized collaborative projects are often riddled with problems that could be solved by software.

How did the company get its name? The founders say knowledge workers labor as hard as those in a quarry but are "workers of the mind" who need powerful tools for collaboration.

CEO and background: Stephan Voigt was previously CEO of Scopeland Technology, which makes a software platform for creating database applications.

Funding: An undisclosed amount from HassoPlattnerVentures, which is funded by SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner. The three founders of Mindquarry were students at the affiliated Hasso-Plattner-Institute in Potsdam, which trains software engineers.

Who's using the product? The free open-source software has been downloaded more than 15,000 times. 1,500 people have installed the software and registered with the company. Mindquarry says it has three paying customers but can't yet disclose who they are.

Company name: Open-Xchange

Founded: May 2005

Location: Tarrytown, N.Y.

What does the company offer? Products including Open-Xchange Server 5, a platform for e-mail, calendaring, documents, contacts and task management.

Why is it worth watching? The small vendor found the spotlight in February of this year when 1&1 Internet, the world's largest Web hosting company, said it will use Open-Xchange's open-source software to deploy more than 1 million e-mail accounts. Open-Xchange isn't posing any major threat to Microsoft, but analysts called the deal an important step for the open-source market.

How did the company get its start? The founders' roots go back to Netline in Germany, which added its collaborative software to the SUSE Linux Openexchange Server. They later decided to move to an open-source development model and make the software available to customers independent of Linux distribution.

How did the company get its name? Founders wanted to show continuity with the software's previous incarnation as part of the SUSE Linux Openexchange Server. The company says the name's similarity to Microsoft Exchange is "purely coincidence."

CEO and background: Jerry Labie was most recently president and CEO of CXO Systems, an enterprise software vendor bought by Cisco. Before that he was president and COO of Novadigm, a system management software vendor acquired by HP.

Funding: Investments (amount not disclosed) from Robert A. Young, a venture capitalist and investment banker; retired IBM executive Lee Dayton; Richard Seibt, the former head of Suse; and BayTech Venture Capital.

Who's using the product? More than 2,000 companies in 65 nations.