I had a good long chat with Pete Cittadini, CEO of open source business intelligence firm Actuate recently. The company is doing somewhere between $120m and $140m a year, having founded and still co-leading the Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) open source project.

We touched on the firm's belief in the open source model and its own take on it, the firm's potential to expand beyond its North American market where 75% of its revenue is generated today, and how the company has performed against the backdrop of a recession.

I also asked about the high cost of being a public company considering its size, and whether Cittadini believes the firm can grow into one with revenues in the several-hundred-millions range.

Perhaps the most interesting comments for some listeners though will be around Cittadini's management style and the kind of culture he likes to foster at Actuate: ""I like the Italian family culture... damn sometimes it comes down to arguments and fights - it can get emotional, typically it's passion."

Listen to the podcast by clicking here. Below Pete's picture you'll find an approximate timeline of the questions if you would like to skip to a certain segment.

Pete Cittadini, CEO of Actuate: "We're grappling with [cloud] pricing."

Timeline of questions:

0:18 What attracted you to joining Actuate way back in 1995?

2:05 One of Actuate's USP is the fact it's open source. Why is that model important, and what's your particular take on the open source model?

5:19 75% of your revenue comes from North America. Does the rest of the world hold the potential for the strongest growth?

7:35 2001 was the pinnacle year for Actuate in terms of revenue. Despite revenue being down slightly in your latest quarter margins have remained strong: is that partly down to the open source model? [N.B. this podcast was recorded before the firm's latest quarterly results were published, which actually saw revenue UP 2% YOY, and UP 19% sequentially]

10:10 The macro-economic climate has clearly not helped. Are you starting to see the green shoots of recovery?

11:58 Actuate tends to get good analyst marks for ease of use. Are you seeing broad roll-outs amongst companies adopting the technology?

14:14 BIRT has a variety of deployment models. Would you say you have a cloud strategy?

15:40 Can a company with revenue in the range of $120m to $140m afford the cost of being public?

17:50 Are you optimistic you can grow into a company with revenues in the several-hundred-million range?

19:15 You've been in technology for over 20 years but started with a BA in Liberal Arts. That makes you somewhat unusual as a tech CEO. Do you think that means there are differences in the kind of culture you like to foster at Actuate?

If you missed the link to the podcast, here it is again.

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Witness A for the defence is Oracle's Thomas Kurian, EVP of product development, who explained the acquisition of AmberPoint thus: "AmberPoint and Oracle share a vision of providing customers with comprehensive SOA management capabilities that support modern IT environments and are also complete, open, and integrated."

"We expect the addition of AmberPoint's products to Oracle Fusion Middleware SOA Suite will provide stronger end-to-end governance," Kurian said, "that allows customers to manage the entire lifecycle of SOA-based solutions, providing visibility and management across heterogeneous environments."

But for the prosecution came comment from AmberPoint rival SOA Software - or at least I've always considered the firm a competitor. And if it wasn't a competitor, you have to ask why it would be so keen to make a comment on Oracle's acquisition.

Anyway, the firm sent me the following prepared comment: "AmberPoint was not a direct competitor for SOA Software. SOA Software is a leading provider of unified SOA and Cloud Services Governance products that enable organizations to successfully plan, build and run cloud and enterprise services."

It added: "AmberPoint only competed with the Service Manager product, and did not provide any form of unified governance automation solution. AmberPoint did announce in December their new AmberPoint Governance System but this was a free give-away, and was never intended to be a legitimate competitor."

Although later in the comment, it does list as one of the good things to flow from the deal that, "In summary, this acquisition will have a positive impact for SOA Software. It will help bolster our position as we continue to deliver value to our customers; our partners will be key for us; the product roadmap between Oracle and AmberPoint will take time to mature; their people will be distracted; and it takes a niche competitor out of our space."

SOA Software was not the only one with something to say about the acquisition of AmberPoint. Witness B for the prosecution came Progress Software's Dan Foody, VP of product management, Enterprise Business Solutions, who had this to say: "This acquisition clearly validates that Business Transaction Management (BTM) is a critical requirement for any organisation. Oracle bought AmberPoint to fill a BTM hole in their portfolio but unfortunately, AmberPoint's core strength is SOA Governance, not BTM."

Fair's fair?

To be fair, Oracle didn't say AmberPoint's core strength is BTM. It said it does SOA management. But it did say that, "AmberPoint's solutions help organizations diagnose and resolve issues in application performance and business transactions... AmberPoint's SOA management products further extend Oracle Fusion Middleware's... SOA capabilities including Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle SOA Governance and Oracle Enterprise Manager accelerating the resolution of application performance and business transactions issues before the business is impacted."

But Foody was unconvinced. "Unfortunately, since AmberPoint's BTM solution is weak, Oracle still have a significant gap," he said. "Clearly AP [AmberPoint] can't be their complete solution, so Oracle will likely acquire someone else in the BTM space. So, the open question is why would someone want to use AP for BTM if Oracle are likely to acquire another company in this area?"

"Another challenge is that Oracle has proven that they are only focused on their own stack, whereas most customers have business transactions that span different applications and middleware - usually from multiple vendors. It's unlikely that Oracle are going to change their stripes, so I'd be concerned if I were a customer that has any non-Oracle platforms in my business transactions."

SOA Software went further still, arguing that AmberPoint was struggling, and far too niche: "Limited Market for AmberPoint: We believe that AmberPoint had significant difficulty moving forward in the market after their OEM relationships were terminated, and because of their reliance on service management or run time governance only," the firm said in a statement. "SOA Software and AmberPoint started competing in the web services management area several years ago, and while AmberPoint remained solely in that market, SOA Software expanded its product portfolio, providing a Unified SOA Governance Automation solution, and a comprehensive suite of mainframe SOA products."

Whether or not that is the case, I do feel I have to suggest that if you want to win points for having a broad solution, you probably don't want to be comparing yourself to Oracle. Who looks too niche: SOA Software with its range of SOA management and governance technologies, or Oracle, with a vast portfolio of database, middleware and applications technologies?

Ps. If you're interested in business transaction management (BTM), you may also want to take a look at OpTier and Precise. Another company that I've not actually met or looked at in the BTM space (as opposed to OpTier and Precise) is Correlsense.

The Labour Party found itself in hot water recently when the Information Commissioner's Office said it had breached privacy rules by making unsolicited automated "robocalls" - voiced by Coronation Street star Liz Dawn - to 495,000 people. But the Lib Dems, Tories and SNP have used the gimmick too.

In the run-up to the election it's likely these and other telephonic tactics will be on the increase.

But fear not, because help is at hand for those who prefer not to receive their campaigning, unsolicited, down the dog and bone. A new website has been set up by inventor Steve Smith, who made Dragon's Den history last summer when he received offers from all five Dragons on the show for his trueCall nuisance call blocking device.

He's set up www.thepoliticalcallregister.co.uk. By registering on the site, Smith promises to send your details to the main political parties, asking them not to contact you by phone. If they persist, he's promising to name and shame the culprits.

"This is a growing problem and the parties that do it are worse than cowboy telemarketers," Smith said. "These calls can be made for a penny each, so the politicians can very cheaply flood the country with calls - this is extremely intrusive."

Not everyone will be signing up for the service, mind. Smith's company trueCall carried out its own research with Mori in October 2008 and found that while 75 per cent of voters would not be happy if a political party rang them and played a recorded message, that leaves a sizable 25 per cent who clearly quite like the sound of a political robot's voice.

Besides, if you think we've got it bad in the UK, you have to feel for the Americans, where political "robocalling" is even more commonplace, and even more distasteful. In one automated message, people picked up the phone to hear a recording of an unidentified woman sobbing, and talking about an abortion-related incident she claimed she'd had at a women's health clinic founded by a Democratic congresswoman. Given the choice, I think I'd rather listen to Corrie's Liz Dawn.

The concept of a tablet or slate PC is not new. They've been around for about 10 years, and it's a format that came to the mainstream thanks to a product announcement by Microsoft in 2001, which saw the Redmond-based firm launch a pen-enabled computer running a licensed copy of the "Windows XP Tablet PC Edition".

It was essentially a laptop-style device that featured a touch-screen with handwriting recognition, to make it easier to jot down notes, rush off a quick sketch or whatever. Some manufacturers opted to stay with the laptop's physical keyboard, spawning a category known as "booklets", while others dropped the keyboard in favour of just a touch screen in a device resembling a slate.

So first off, let's just remind ourselves who brought this concept to the masses - Microsoft - before we wonder whether Apple's version will "change the world" as some commentators are suggesting.

Second, it's worth noting that so far, such tablets have found only a limited audience. A recent Morgan Stanley report suggested two million tablet PCs were shipped last year, compared with 34 million netbooks and 131 million notebooks.

So why hasn't the concept of a tablet PC overtaken more traditional laptops, notebooks or indeed the latest netbooks already? Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive list of disadvantages including the higher cost, snail-like speed of handwriting recognition compared to a keyboard, screen and hinge damage risk, less familiar ergonomics and in most cases a relative lack of power.

So if Apple launches a tablet-style Mac next week, will it change any of this? I sincerely doubt it. To read the rest of this article click here.

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