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Many companies are now looking to build communities outside the firewall to engage customers, suppliers, and prospects, as well as create communities inside the enterprise to engage employees on key topics. I have written about several new approaches to supporting communities on this blog and Fast Forward. Drupal has been around a long time in web years as a community platform. I first heard about it in 2004. Acquia was recently formed to make Drupal more accessible and provide professional support.

Acquia is participating in another Launch Pad event, this time for the Enterprise 2.0 conference. For this Launch Pad event, technology companies were asked to submit a one-minute video pitch to be voted on by the Enterprise 2.0 community. There will be multiple rounds, with four companies eventually on stage at the Enterprise 2.0 conference to present and demonstrate in front of a live audience.

Earlier this afternoon, six startups had five minutes each to present their wares onstage to a panel of VCs and an audience at the Web 2.0 Expo Launch Pad. Panelists gave feedback to the companies in real-time, and depending on how well they did, had the option to “offer these applicants non-binding term sheets for financing”.

As I've said previously, the Web 2.0 Expo show features a lot of products for developers. But there are still cool new Web apps to find--especially at the Launch Pad, a rapid-fire demo session featuring six relatively new companies. It's kind of like a mini-Demo.

Acquia sells a commercialized version of Drupal, the open-source content management (and Webware 100 winner). If you buy the open-to-commercial model, as executed by RedHat (Linux), and Trixbox (Asterisk), this business makes a lot of sense. I'm glad to see the platform get some business attention.

Who are the top young technology entrepreneurs according to a survey conducted by BusinessWeek? While we here at CMSWire we deeply disappointed our very own Brice Dunwoodie didn’t make the list, we were equally impressed that Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal did.

“Make sure you have a solid business plan and you’ve done your homework and are passionate about what you are doing, and people will recognize your potential,” says Buytaert.

Not only does Dries Buytaert get selected as one the top young tech entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek, but one of his newest ventures — Acquia, has been chosen to launch their company at the Launch Pad - Venture Capital Edition during the web2.0 expo today in San Francisco.

According to the web2.0 website, many new Web 2.0 companies have to get past the scrutiny of many a venture capital firm. With this in mind, this year’s Launch Pad will not only give new startups the opportunity to launch their company, but it will also provide them with VC and audience real time feedback.

As the economy slumps, many entrepreneurs are looking past consumer Web sites to focus on products and services for companies

Early in March I posted about hearing the founder of Drupal, Dries Buytaert, speak in Boston as part of an adjunct to the AiiM Show called DrupalCon. Part of that Drupal event was the first public explanation of the strategy behind Dries’ new venture called Acquia. Acquia is a commercial company to service and support Drupal as the popular open source social publishing platform tries to move to the next level in the market.

Six hot open source startups and projects got notice at the Open Source Business Conference this week.

Not surprisingly, many of them are in software categories deemed most vulnerable to open source disruption, including collaboration and conferencing, social publishing, sales automation, application deployment and developer tools.

By any standard, Drupal is a FOSS success story, with more than 900 contributors to the recently announced version 6.0, and some 1,800 modules supplementing the core functionality.