>There have been only 3 successful open source companies ever: MySQL, Jboss, and Redhat

See now, there's just no reason to go around saying things like that. Even if that were true (it's not), how would you know that it's true? Do you have a complete database of profitable businesses in your head? I doubt it. A significant number of open source companies are privately held, and there's really no telling how successful they are.

Anyway, right off the bat, you missed Mozilla Corporation.

Beyond that, the question of whether a company that does nothing but develop FOSS is irrelevant. The important question is whether developing FOSS can be a major part of a successful business strategy. You might start by asking Google and Apple.

It is exceedingly easy to find other examples to counter. In fact, one of the easier ways is by looking at software where their license is of a specific type. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AGPL_web_applications

Tell me, is the goalpost that you're toting around there heavy?

Cloudera isn't primarily consulting. In fact we have about 8x as many engineers in product development compared to consulting, last I counted.

Alfresco and SugarCRM seem to be doing OK. I don't have deep insight into their finances, but they're certainly still around and in business.