SugarCRM, Cloudera debut on list of open source firms to watch in '11

It should come as no surprise that Red Hat and Google are ranked among the top open source companies to watch, according to an annual survey conducted by an industry VCand market researcher.

And it comes as no surprise that Acquia, EnterpriseDB and JasperSoft made the top 8 list again, published today as part of the 2011 Future of Open Source survey, conducted by North Bridge Venture Partners and the 451Group. The Waltham, Ma. VC is an investor in Acquia.

But there are a few names – SugarCRM and Cloudera-- new on the list this year, while other companies that showed up in last year’s ranking – Talend, Ingres and Canonical –got bumped. .

The cloud phenomenon and social business computing has driven up the profile of Acquia, SugarCRM  and Cloudera this year, as has increased interest in social CRM and social publishing , sid Michael Skok, Managing Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners.

According to the same survey, open source has become mainstream across enterprises and that has increased the stature of infrastructure kingpins such as Red Hat and online services giant Google, whose Android open source operating system is making a strong run against Apple's proprietary iPhone OS.

Novell made the list again, as it did in 2009, in last place. The second-ranking Linux distributor was acquired by Attachmate late last year.