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- Unisys aims to ride the wave of open source TIO
- MySQL set to join the open source IPO club
- Will Oracle launch Unbreakable MySQL?
- Has SCO seen the end of the line?
- EnterpriseDB – the open source total innovation opportunity in action
- Balancing open source risk and the total innovation opportunity
- Putting a value on the total innovation opportunity of open source
- How much open source do enterprises use?
- The innovation opportunity of open source
- So who is using Linux on the desktop?
- Sun disguises price-hike as Red Hat discount
- Franchise: the new open source business model?
- Is the iPhone in breach of the GPL?
- Will Microsoft ever take a mainstream product open source?
- Europe's great open source opportunity
- Where does open source code come from?
- How do enterprises acquire open source software?
- Open source mythbusting
- Becta report slams Microsoft academic licensing, dismisses Vista
- DistroWatch pages hits are NOT download statistics
- Red Hat Czechs in
- Oracle to acquire Ingres?
- Second Life goes open source
- What Brian said (slightly off topic)
- Why real life is better than Second Life (off topic)
- Putting Mozilla’s revenue in to perspective
- MySQL changes license to avoid GPLv3
- Festive open source news round-up
Open Source Blog: January 2007 Archives
Unisys aims to ride the wave of open source TIO
January 31, 2007
I just got off the phone with Hans Sparkes, head of enterprise open source with Unisys, who gave me a good introductory overview of the company’s open source solutions and services.
Unisys is now pushing open source as one of its main strategic programs, alongside the likes of outsourcing, Microsoft, and real-time infrastructure. One of the reasons is that the company sees a groundswell of client in interest in open source.
The drive has previously been driven by a focus on cost said Sparkes, but the big opportunity comes not from driving down cost but increasing innovation, he said, before I even had a chance to mention the total innovation opportunity angle.
MySQL set to join the open source IPO club
January 30, 2007
I promised more from MySQL's CEO, Marten Mickos, and here it is: after years of rumo(u)r the company is finally preparing to go public, joining a select group of open source vendors that have made it to the publicly traded markets.
I asked Marten why he thought relatively few open source vendors had either been acquired or gone public, and his answer was interesting. While admittedly only a handful have gone public (as can be seen from my "Brief history of open source IPOs"), you have to consider the context and the maturity of the vendors, he said. In that regard, things look a lot more healthy.
Will Oracle launch Unbreakable MySQL?
January 29, 2007
I had an interesting an enjoyable meeting with Marten Mickos, MySQL’s chief executive officer this morning. As usual Marten was in good spirits, and as usual he had some interesting things to talk about.
Here are just two things of note: Oracle has suggested it will offer support for the MySQL code, undercutting the company, and Oracle is already distributing the open source database management system.
Has SCO seen the end of the line?
As noted by Groklaw, The SCO Group’s latest SEC filing contains the admission for the first time that the company might not get to have its claims against IBM heard by a jury.
This is the worse case scenario for SCO – such is the nature of the caution shown by every company in the “risk factor” section of any filing – but when combined with the language used by Darl McBride on the company’s recent financial conference call, it indicates that perhaps SCO has realized that the light it once saw at the end of the tunnel was in fact a train.
EnterpriseDB – the open source total innovation opportunity in action
January 26, 2007
If you’re looking for evidence of the total innovation opportunity of open source in action, look no further than open source-based database vendor EnterpriseDB, which is mounting a challenge to the established vendors in a market that appeared to be locked down just a few years ago.
“The barriers to entry to build a new database are huge – at least 1,000 man years,” the company’s president and CEO, Andy Astor, told me yesterday.
The only way to challenge in the market was by using open source software as a stepping stone to delivering innovation.
Balancing open source risk and the total innovation opportunity
January 25, 2007
This week I have been banging on and on about the total innovation opportunity of using open source software as an enterprise development platform.
Where there is opportunity there is risk, of course, as a timely conversation with Mark Tolliver, CEO of intellectual property compliance software vendor Palamida, reminded me.
““The reality is we get a lot of software from a lot of sources,” he said, noting that it is essential that developers and vendors be able to account for their software.
Putting a value on the total innovation opportunity of open source
January 24, 2007
Earlier this week I wrote about how open source software has the potential to lower development costs for business users, while at the same time raising their potential to focus on innovative development.
I called this the total innovation opportunity (TIO) and contrasted it with the traditional focus on total cost of ownership, arguing that just focusing on TCO when comaring proprietary and open source software did not take into account the additional gains to be made via the ITO of open source.
Now, via MySQL’s Zack Urlocker, comes an indication of just what this innovation opportunity could amount to – such as it being 30 times less expensive to launch a new start-up.
How much open source do enterprises use?
January 23, 2007
As mentioned yesterday, I had the chance to sit down for a chat with OpenLogic CEO, Steven Grandchamp to discuss the open source market and OpenLogic’s services opportunities.
An interesting statistic Steven came out with was that “on average most enterprises are using 50 to 100 open source products”. The most he’s seen is 400+, while OpenLogic’s average customer is using 54.
Little wonder enterprises are looking for stack and services providers to ease the management workload.
The innovation opportunity of open source
January 22, 2007
TCO is important, but does it distract from another at least equally important metric? What about the total innovation opportunity (TIO)?
I’m in the middle of a number of conversations about open source investment for a forthcoming feature in which I’ll update the preliminary figures I published late last year.
One of the interesting things I’ve realized is that one of the reasons VC companies invest in open source vendors is the same as one the reasons businesses invest in developing on open source software – it’s a more efficient development model.
So who is using Linux on the desktop?
January 19, 2007
Novell will later today officially launch its new site comparing SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop with Microsoft’s Vista, undermining suggestions that it has become Microsoft’s lapdog and presenting the case for Linux on the desktop.
There’s only a few details on the site right now – a competitive white paper, demo, product presentation, and FAQ – but one thing I found interesting was a list of customers.
Sun disguises price-hike as Red Hat discount
January 18, 2007
I was somewhat surprised this week to see a number of stories about Sun under-cutting Red Hat with its new pricing for Solaris. Not because it isn’t an interesting story, but because my colleague Tim Prickett-Morgan, who wouldn’t miss a trick, hadn’t reported that angle at all.
What was going on here? Had we missed the news? Had we got our facts wrong?
Far from it. While it is undeniable that Solaris support is cheaper than that of Red Hat Enterprise Linux ("about half that of equivalent offerings from Red Hat", according to Sun, the fact is Sun has actually *increased* the price it is charging to support Solaris.
Franchise: the new open source business model?
January 17, 2007
I am still reading through the European Commission’s final report on the Economic Impact of FLOSS and yet another interest section has jumped out at me on the subject of open source business models.
The reason it stood out was that it reminded me of a recent post from Matt Asay about a paper written by Roberto Galoppini suggesting that the franchise model might be a promising one for the expansion of open source.
The Commission’s report appears to back up Roberto’s suggestion.
Is the iPhone in breach of the GPL?
No, not that iPhone, this one.
ITWeek is reporting that Dutch programmer Armijn Hemel, who is a contributor to the GPL violations project believes that Cisco’s WIP300 iPhone is in breach of the GPL because the company has not published all the open source code it makes use of.
Will Microsoft ever take a mainstream product open source?
January 16, 2007
Stephen Walli has posted an interesting ‘thought experiment’ about Microsoft and what it could be doing with open source.
“Microsoft needs to start to explore open source software business processes better than the minor experiments they have done to date. Steve Ballmer also wants to license the company's intellectual property. So here's a way to do that using free software as the hook,” he writes before explaining how Microsoft might hypothetically release the code to its SQL Server database.
Europe's great open source opportunity
January 15, 2007
As mentioned on Friday, the European Commission's final report on the the Economic Impact of FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) contains some interesting insight into European adoption of open source and its "opportunity to create new software businesses and reach towards the Lisbon goals of making Europe the most competitive knowledge economy by 2010."
It also takes me back to an old argument about the importance of location to open source vendors.
Where does open source code come from?
January 12, 2007
The European Commission has published its final report on the Economic Impact of FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) on innovation and competitiveness of the EU ICT sector.
Weighing in at 287 pages it will take some time to digest, and contains enough data and statistics to fill a blog for a whole year. During a first glance through the report my eye was drawn to a couple of things in particular, however:
- "The high share of European FLOSS developers provides a unique opportunity to create new software businesses and reach towards the Lisbon goals of making Europe the most competitive knowledge economy by 2010." (More on this at a later date.)
- "Firms have invested an estimated Euro 1.2 billion in developing FLOSS software that is made freely available. Such firms represent in total at least 565 000 jobs and Euro 263 billion in annual revenue."
Expanding on the latter, the report has some interesting statistics about who is responsible for open source code.
How do enterprises acquire open source software?
Optaros's Open Source Catalogue has been getting a lot of attention thanks to its rating of 262 open source projects as to their enterprise readiness.
It's an interesting and useful resource, but the white paper (registration required) also includes a lot more.
One nugget of information that stood out for me was the explanation of how the acquisition of open source software differs from traditionally licensed enterprise software.
Open source mythbusting
January 11, 2007
I was recently referred to as an "open source and Linux advocate" (not to mention "respectable", my Mum would be so proud) which got me thinking about the nature of this blog and what it is for.
Becta report slams Microsoft academic licensing, dismisses Vista
January 10, 2007
I am in the midst of wading through two interim reports from Becta (the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency) on Microsoft's academic licensing programs and Microsoft Vista/Office 2007.
Even ignoring the open source-related controversy surrounding these reports (see here, here , here, and here) the statistics are jaw-dropping.
The fundamental findings are:
- Microsoft's licensing arrangements in the education sector pose "significant potential for institutions to find themselves locked in to Microsoft"... and "very significant complexity... that has resulted in widespread use of inappropriate licensing strategies."
- There are "a significant number of issues that need to be addressed before Vista should be considered for deployment in educational institutions" while "Becta has not yet been able to identify any realistic justification for the early adoption of Office 2007 across the educational ICT estate."
DistroWatch pages hits are NOT download statistics
There seems to be growing confusion about the Linux distribution popularity statistics published over at DistroWatch, with some commentators referring to them as download statistics that indicate growing adoption of openSUSE.
This is not the case.
UPDATE - I originally cleared Novell of blame for this mistake, now it appears I was too generous.
Red Hat Czechs in
January 09, 2007
Red Hat is investing 1.3m euros in opening a development centre in Brno in the Czech Republic, according to CzechInvest.
Despite its low number of vowels Brno is a very pleasant city and was, coincidentally, the location for my stag do (bachelor party).
Oracle to acquire Ingres?
Oracle has already acquired Innobase and Sleepycat, is Ingres the next open source database technology vendor on its list? AMR Research's chief research officer, Bruce Richardson thinks it might.
Second Life goes open source
January 08, 2007
9.44am - I write about Second Life for the first time ever on the Open Source Weblog.
12.30pm - Linden Lab announces that it is releasing Second Life code as open source.
Coincidence? You decide.
What Brian said (slightly off topic)
Linux Today editor, Brian Proffitt, has written a note on the coverage of Linux and open source that I wholeheartedly agree with:
"Reporters should try to be fair. Reporters should try to be honest. And if they happen to reveal something that is not-so-perfect with Linux, they should be listened to, not ridiculed or labeled as some pro-Microsoft flunky."
Why real life is better than Second Life (off topic)
This never happened in real life:
"...the avatar Anshe Chung (real name Ailin Graef) was attacked by animated flying penises during a virtual interview with CNET news, conducted in their Second Life bureau last month".
At least, not in my experience.
Putting Mozilla’s revenue in to perspective
January 05, 2007
You’ve no doubt seen the headlines about Mozilla reporting that it brought in revenue of $52.9m during 2005. This is an impressive figure, especially when you put it into perspective against a number of other software vendors.
MySQL changes license to avoid GPLv3
January 04, 2007
Here’s an announcement that almost got drowned out by festive cheer: MySQL has changed the license it uses for its open source database management system to avoid being forced to move to the forthcoming GPL v3.
Festive open source news round-up
January 03, 2007
Happy New Year. We’ll be back up to speed shortly with the latest open source news and views, but in the meantime, here’s a list of the news headlines we missed while stuffing our faces with turkey and Christmas pudding:
City of Amsterdam to spend 300,000 euros testing open source software.
ObjectWeb and Orientware merge to form OW2 Consortium.
Real-time Linux vendor Concurrent announces $10m credit facility.
Open source ECM vendor Cignex raises undisclosed expansion funding.
Jeremy Allison explains his reasons for leaving Novell over the Microsoft deal.
CIO study predicts strong enterprise adoption for Linux.
EnterpriseDB expands Asia Pacific operations.
The code for MySQL’s Falcon storage has been released as open source.
Mandriva expands into Mexico.
The Fedora legacy project is winding down.
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