French companies are leading the adoption of enterprise open source, with 24% of companies question in a survey by analyst firm Forrester Research saying they are already using open source solutions across the enterprise.

German enthusiasm for open source followed with 21% of companies making significant use of the free software, while the UK lagged well behind the US and Canada with 15%.

John Newton, co-founder of Documentum and now CTO of open-source content management system vendor, Alfresco, has previously suggested the UK is behind in open source adoption because of its “conservative mandarin” approach to IT procurement, particularly in the government sector.

The Forrester report found cost was the main factor driving the enterprise open source trend, quoting one survey respondent as saying his company expected to save almost E1 million over three years by replacing a single application with an open source alternative.

Those surveyed said they were less concerned about IP and security issues by using open source instead of proprietary software, and some even reported being in the third phase of open source adoption, with reliance on software such as MySQL, Alfresco and Spago.