Our latest marketing metrics show a 61% increase in inbound leads from Q2 to Q3 of this year. Q4 looks to be on track to continue this strong growth.

Inbound leads come from prospects that ask for a quote from OpenLogic for support services or our open source governance solution. So these numbers typically represent companies that are looking to buy — not just download. We believe that this large increase is due to the economic downturn for several reasons:

• In a poll we did as part of a recent webinar on Cost Cutting with Open Source, over 69% of the attendees said that they plan to use more open source or are considering using more open source in response to the economic downturn.
• We've had huge interest in our "open source comparison webinars" where we compare multiple open source options within a particular category. These webinars typically attract people who are evaluating open source.
• Our sales team has seen a huge increase in interest in our open source governance solution, which typically is an early indicator of companies wanting to use more open source software. They want to make sure that they have the appropriate policies and processes in place to manage open source before they open the floodgates to a lot more open source usage.

Early data shows us that the economic downturn will accelerate the adoption of open source software in the enterprise.