SAP + BO
Filed under: Open Source

In the last couple of years, it seemed that Oracle was setting out to acquire just about every independent software company, outbidding SAP in several occasions. But now with SAP's planned acquisition of Business Objects, it's clearly a sign that they are changing their strategy and they are willing to step up to the plate for strategic acquisitions. This is no doubt a big move for SAP --and at $6.8 billion it's also an expensive move. All eyes will be on SAP to see how they execute on this deal. And perhaps this will lead to further consolidation by Oracle,... more

Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 09, 2007 at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)

The price is right: Next open source business model
Filed under: Business

2007 is shaping up to be a banner year for open source companies. SourceForge, which hosts almost 160,000 projects, just posted fiscal year 2007 revenues that showed a hefty 35 percent increase over 2006. Red Hat posted a 28 percent revenue increase on the year. And Novell's Suse is valued at approximately $210 million. What's more, numbers like these are bolstered by an unprecedented user acceptance of open source within the enterprise. According to research conducted by Barracuda Networks (yeah, it's a security vendor), 53 percent of security managers would opt for open source, compared with 47 percent who would... more

Posted by Brad Shimmin on October 09, 2007 at 03:00 AM | Comments (5)

Bill Hiff Adds Windows Server Marketing Responsibility
Filed under: Microsoft

Networkworld is reporting: "The leader of Microsoft's integration efforts around open source software and its proprietary technologies is expanding his role by adding the title "general manager of Windows server marketing," further indication that Microsoft plans to crank up the volume on its Windows/Linux story. ... "This expanded role is a natural evolution of the work Bill has led at Microsoft over the past four years – working together with Microsoft technology-development teams and the open source community to build interoperable solutions on top of the Windows Platform, and continuing the discussion around Linux and Windows," a company representative said."... more

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 08, 2007 at 08:14 PM | Comments (1)

Steve Ballmer on Open Source, Online and Other
Filed under: Microsoft

There is a very interesting video of Steve Ballmer speaking in the UK. As always, entertaining and a little bizarre. Talking about advertising "A lot of people don't like to pay for things." "Will online publications be all ad funded? Yes. Traffic is very valuable but not very monetizable...Many things will be ad-funded or not-for-profit." Any plans to bring development tools to other platforms? No. Open Source What's our strategy A. Compete--we need to offer better value where there is a direct overlap B. Open Source innovation on Windows--our battle is product to product Praise for Novell--"Novell says that IP... more

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 08, 2007 at 01:47 PM | Comments (2)

Oct. 12 - Legal Summit for Software Freedom
Filed under: Open Source

This must have been announced previously (?) but this press release was recently emailed to us... The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), will host a Legal Summit for Software Freedom on Friday, October 12, at Columbia Law School. "We intend to bring together leading attorneys in the Software Freedom community to discuss matters of mutual interest and concern," said Eben Moglen, Executive Director of SFLC and Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia Law School. WHAT: Legal Summit for Software Freedom WHEN: Friday, October... more

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 08, 2007 at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

The Automatic Blog Pundit
Filed under: Off Topic

In case you haven't guessed, I'm off line and wrote this week's blog entries in advance. To help round out the week, you get to create your own custom blog posting just by filling in the blanks below. How hard can it be? I think Matt Asay actually has a program that cranks out these kind of posts automatically. --Zack Ok, I must admit, I was surprised when I read this morning that (Microsoft / Sun / Novell / Red Hat / Oracle / Apple) announced they were (sueing / acquiring / partnering with / suing and partnering) their longtime... more

Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 05, 2007 at 05:42 AM | Comments (5)

Scott McNealy's Five Reasons for Going Open Source
Filed under: Open Source

In addition to today's BusinessWeek story on "Reinventing Sun" (not a lot of new info for those of us who have been playing along.) I came across this post from Jim Laurent outlining Scott McNealy's thoughts on why Sun went open source. It all makes sense...except for the fact that Sun should have embraced Linux or open-sourced Solaris many years ago. 1. Free means low barrier to entry 2. Open source as a research and development multiplier 3. Security 4. Partnering and proliferation of our technology 5. Low barriers to exit Nonetheless, Sun's efforts have been very impressive. We have... more

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 04, 2007 at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)

Open Season Podcast Episode Four--Mark Shuttleworth
Filed under: Open Source

Last week in-between all my pizza parties and chinese food (food is the only thing I miss about the east coast) we somehow managed to record Episode Four of Open Season, the podcast dedicated to making listeners laugh and/or retch. We had the honorable Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu bigshot and moon rover join me, Matt and Ashlee. Being that the cursed Blue Angels are in SF this week I am hoping Mark can use his status as a former astronaut to ask NASA stop these noisy bastards from waking my baby and freaking out the dog. Open Season - Episode 4... more

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 04, 2007 at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)

Microsoft is Taking its Lead from OpenJDK
Filed under: Open Source

By now, we've all read that Microsoft is releasing the .NET 3.5 source under the Microsoft Research License (i.e. look but don't touch). I view this is but another step into the OSS swimming pool. I'm willing to bet a shinny new Loonie that Microsoft will start allowing user contributions within the next year. And then we'll see a Microsoft-led OSS project around the .NET runtime within the next 2 years. Microsoft will likely create a pseudo-GPL license (which isn't the GPL) for this purpose. Obviously Microsoft will own the 'official' .NET distribution, but allowing user contributions first, and then... more

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 04, 2007 at 08:06 AM | Comments (2)

User Responses to MSFT releasing .NET 3.5 Source
Filed under: Microsoft

So far the views from Dave, whurley, Matt and others have been negative to handle with caution. After I heard that Microsoft was releasing the .NET 3.5 source under the Microsoft Research License (i.e. look but don't touch), I tried to find what .NET users were saying. I found Scott Guthrie's blog (of MSFT) and after reading 57 of the 85 comments listed, here's what I found: 49 responded (very) positively to the news 3 responded (very) negatively to the news, specifically because of the MRL 6 were in a language other than English (French, German) or were pingbacks without... more

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 04, 2007 at 07:28 AM | Comments (3)