Sure everyone knows Linux, Apache and MySQL. Open Office is an open source household word. But how many of you have heard of BIRT? If you haven't, don't fret. As Madge from Palmolive used to say, "don't worry your soaking in it". BIRT, which stands for Business Intelligence and Reporting Tool is probably embedded in at least one application you are using. Founded as an open source project in 2004, Acuate the company behind BIRT, just announced that they have surpassed 10 million downloads of the package and boast of over 1,000,000 developers using BIRT world wide.

I first became aware of BIRT while at StillSecure. We had several security applications that featured web based GUIs. Our reporting was pretty standard for security apps at that time. We basically had some queries to the database and presented the data in a spreadsheet like row by row format. Uninspiring and frankly not really useful. We wanted reports that would POP. We wanted graphic pie charts, 3D line charts, the ability for users to run custom reports built on the fly and delivered in a variety of formats.

We actually looked at including a copy of Crystal Reports with each appliance and application we sold. But the price was prohibitively expensive and it really wasn't built for embedding. Our VP of engineering, James Brown and Security Architect, Brad Doctor were both big open source fans. In fact a lot of the StillSecure product line was based on open source components. They came to us with a fairly new tool called BIRT. With both an open source and commercially supported version and made to be embedded by ISVs, it was like a wish come true for us.

Our products went from having boring dot matrix style print reports to full color dashboards, 3D graphs and reports delivered in just about any format you could desire. Our reporting became a main selling point for our products. The real value in many security products is what can be done with the information they gather. With BIRT the possibilities were endless.

But beyond my own personal experience with BIRT, the folks at Acuate have really succeeded in making a commercial company around this open source tool. Over the last 4 years they have booked something like 55 million dollars in BIRT related revenue. From their press release here are some more of the financial highlights for Q3:

BIRT-related business of over $5.1 million, Over 50% increase in BIRT-related license business from first 9 months of FY09; Over 140 BIRT-related transactions bringing the total since beginning of 2008 to over 1,200; Over 32,000 total BIRT community registrations on BIRT Exchange to date; Contribution from Open Source BIRT users remains strong; Commercial downloads from BIRT Exchange continue to increase; The BIRT Exchange Marketplace now houses 77 applications, over half of which have been contributed by third parties; The general availability of BIRT onDemand was announced, good news for the over 1,000 beta participants.

BIRT on Demand is a cloud-based SaaS model. Like SugarCRM and others, putting an open source app out in the cloud via SaaS is a great way to build a commercial model around open source. Actuate also has an iPhone app for BIRT as well.

The real strength of BIRT though is the vibrant community gathered around it. Over 1 million developers, lots of applications BIRT based applications built by 3rd parties and lots of recognition by both the analyst and business community, BIRT may be the best kept secret in open source.

So if you need some eye-popping reporting check BIRT out. Take a look at the applications you use that provide you with the best reports. You may just find BIRT inside. Another great tool brought to you courtesy of open source