A new generation of high-value open-source business applications is coming, according to a leading analyst.

Speaking ahead of next week’s Gartner Open Source Summit in Barcelona, the research firm’s Nikos Drakos predicted a new wave of programs beyond the relatively mature open-source operating system, development tool and database sectors.

These will include collaboration, portal, content management and business intelligence tools, said Drakos. “Open source is moving beyond infrastructure,” he added. “There’s already a lot of fairly mature and popular products in middleware, operating system and programming tools and on top of that there’s various bits and pieces in process repositories, search engines, database drivers and templating tools. It takes a lot less effort to think about portals and content management systems and there is now a basis on which high-value tools can be developed.”

Drakos pointed to examples of companies such as Zimbra in messaging, SugarCRM in customer relationship management and Alfresco in content management.

He also noted trends such as the re-emergence of venture capital for open-source firms, the rise of system integrators for open-source projects, interest in open-source from emerging economies, and the fact that experienced commercial managers are now working for open-source companies.