Quickly looking through the 10 to watch I was struck by two things: Woah there is a lot of money being raised for open source development! The second, two mentions of Sales force. One in relation to SugarCRM: What are the major obstacles to overcome? The most direct competition comes from Salesforce.com. The differentiator is that SugarCRM is an open-source offering, but that difference may not be as large as it appears at first glance. SugarCRM is banking on several current trends: software as a service, adoption of open source in the enterprise, and the penetration of enterprise applications like CRM and SFA into the mid-market. Sugar has raised $26.52m in funding. The second SF mention was related to OpenAir, an application that helps organizations quantify the value of engagements. Oddly, a friend of mine opened a bar a few years back called OpenAir, on St. Marks Place in New York.