It’s time to settle the discussion from OSCON about who dubbed GroundWork, Hyperic, Qlusters (openQRM), and Zenoss the “Little Four.” Was it me? Was it Mark Hinkle? Surely it was Gartner! In fact, the name was coined by fellow Austinite and Redmonk analyst Michael Cote. Cote described them as an alternative to BMC, CA, HP and IBM (the Big Four) in one of his famous posts. So give full credit to Cote whenever you reference the Little Four in your blogs, white papers, etc.

So what’s my take on all of this? Many argue the Little Four are a new breed of management company. I’d argue that’s not quite true, as these companies are simply trying to employ open source to differentiate their products within the existing systems management marketplace. This however, may be a short-lived distinction. My moving from CTO at Qlusters (one of the Little Four) to BMC is a clear sign that at least one of the Big Four understands the value of open source in systems management.

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