The Economist posted an article today entitled “Open Source Software in the Recession” that effectively presents the current state of the open source software market and some of the benefits derived. Great comments included from Red Hat, Al Fresco , and Forrester executives and analysts. One point made in the article is that as open source software firms are flourishing, they are becoming less distinctive, and that it might be that traditional firms and their OSS rivals will soon become hard to tell apart.  I might add a point to that.

To the extent that open source becomes more pervasive, and acquisitions of OSS companies continue, the lines between OSS and proprietary companies may appear to blur, but their business practices involve distinctions that must remain in order to continue to bring incredible value to the market. On the financial side there is the huge benefit of paying on a subscription basis, whether that payment be considered for support only, support & updates or other benefit. The old model of paying tens or hundreds of thousands up front Read the rest of this entry »

 

Just delivered a webcast for Ingres last week regarding our internal use of open source, and in particular our use of the Icebreaker BI Appliance. You can view a recording of the webcast here. I have been head of professional services, or head of IT for several software companies, and in the past I have seen mixed results when “eating your own cooking”. Here at Ingres, our message espouses the use of open source and standards based software, including of course our own database, along with our peers at RedHat, Jaspersoft, and Al Fresco to name a few.  For us internally, the value of these tools and applications has been undeniable, and it’s making our menu of choices very appetizing.

I’ve taken on BI projects in the past where there was a large capital outlay Read the rest of this entry »

 

Keane is one of the few current bands I know whose sound is piano and keyboard driven, arriving on the scene in 2004 with their instant classic “Hopes and Fears“.  Keyboard player Tim Rice-Oxley is dynamic and assertive in concert, rocking his electric piano back and forth as he emphasizes the power chords that drive such hits as “Somewhere Only We Know”. Singer Tom Chaplin is one of the more expressive vocalists on the stage today, unafraid to be demonstrative and emotive as he puts every bit of energy into his soaring vocals. Only drummer Richard Hughes hangs back in the mix, just keeping the beat.

I first caught Keane at Coachella, then at a Read the rest of this entry »

 

Forrester’s Jeffrey Hammond presented “Open Source Trends in 2009” during a webinar today, and delivered the good news about Open Source that increasingly we all have been experiencing. He walked through a well placed historical perspective on the market going from “Cathedrals & Bazaars” (OSS development driven by economic Darwinism and necessity) to “Guilds” (more organization and class reform), to “Shopping Malls”, stating that the enterprise software and OSS markets are set for an inevitable collision. Recent M&A activity certainly attests to the collision, which can bring needed capital to some worthy players, though some of this activity will weaken open source offerings in the wrong hands. When you are out shopping, know your vendor!

Favorite moment was Jeffrey’s likening of open source acceptance to the six stages of grief Read the rest of this entry »

 

Rick Wakeman has played piano and just about every acoustic, analog and digital keyboard as a prolific artist since the late 1960’s, most notably in the band “Yes”, and most frequently as a solo artist penning more than 80 albums over his long career.  The first real solo release from Rick is the instrumental masterpiece, “The Six Wives of Henry the VIII”, from 1972. This seminal work was recorded with a series of musicians in a band format and featuring brilliant use of Moog synthesizers, Hammond organ, church organ, and piano.

I just went to see Rick at Hampton Court in celebration of King Henry the 8ths 500th anniversary, where he presented “Six Wives” in it’s entirely to small audiences of 5,000 patrons on May 1st and 2nd.  This was my first and possibly last chance to finally see Rick with orchestra and choir, Read the rest of this entry »

 

Just thinking today about the announcement that Oracle is purchasing Sun Microsystems. Twitter is overloaded with tweets. Bloggers are blogging. Most all of it is negative. From a CIO’s perspective, this type of consolidation reduces customer choice and curtails vendor innovation. When one vendor is supplying your hardware, utility software, and applications software, beware. Oracle becomes a single stack - not a position buyers want to be in. We have been talking about vendor ‘lock in’ - this is akin to vendor ‘lock down’.

That feeling of vertigo is actually all of us falling backwards in time, when we lacked choice and you really had to be ‘locked in’ to one vendor who provided the complete stack of solutions.  We experienced a wave of innovation in this industry when we moved from purchasing all solutions from one or two mainframe companies, to many companies, Read the rest of this entry »