In 1998, Ericsson released Erlang as [[free and open-source software]] to ensure its independence from a single vendor and to increase awareness of the language. Erlang, together with libraries and the real-time distributed database [[Mnesia]], forms the OTP collection of libraries. Ericsson and a few other companies support Erlang commercially.
Since the open source release, Erlang has been used by several firms worldwide, including [[Nortel Networks|Nortel]] and [[T-MobileDeutsche International AG|T-MobileTelekom]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Who uses Erlang for product development? |work=Frequently asked questions about Erlang |url=http://erlang.org/faq/introduction.html#idp32141008 |access-date=16 July 2007 |quote=''The largest user of Erlang is (surprise!) Ericsson. Ericsson use it to write software used in telecommunications systems. Many dozens of projects have used it, a particularly large one is the extremely scalable AXD301 ATM switch.'' Other commercial users listed as part of the FAQ include: Nortel, Deutsche Flugsicherung (the German national [[air traffic control]] organisation), and T-Mobile.}}</ref> Although Erlang was designed to fill a niche and has remained an obscure language for most of its existence, its popularity is growing due to demand for concurrent services.<ref>{{cite web |title=Programming Erlang |url=http://www.ddj.com/linux-open-source/201001928?cid=RSSfeed_DDJ_OpenSource |access-date=13 December 2008 |quote=Virtually all language use shared state concurrency. This is very difficult and leads to terrible problems when you handle failure and scale up the system...Some pretty fast-moving startups in the financial world have latched onto Erlang; for example, the Swedish www.kreditor.se.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Erlang, the next Java |url=http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/ralph/blogView?showComments=true&entry=3364027251|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011065959/http://cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/ralph/blogView?showComments=true&entry=3364027251|url-status=dead|archive-date=11 October 2007 |access-date=8 October 2008 |quote=I do not believe that other languages can catch up with Erlang anytime soon. It will be easy for them to add language features to be like Erlang. It will take a long time for them to build such a high-quality VM and the mature libraries for concurrency and reliability. So, Erlang is poised for success. If you want to build a multicore application in the next few years, you should look at Erlang.}}</ref>
Erlang has found some use in fielding [[massively multiplayer online role-playing game]] (MMORPG) servers.<ref>{{cite web
