- Transformation at Red Hat?
- Hey Red Hat, where's the love for Hyperic?
- Microsoft Oslo: Lacking Interoperability?
- Last Chance Call for Papers
- Scary IT Stories?
- Fake Larry Ellison Retires?
- SCO to Sell Unix Business?
- Getting to know Nuxeo, OSS ECM
- Microsoft To Slim Down Windows
- How vested are you in your OSS?
October 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)
About a week ago Matt Asay over at CNet noted how Joanne Rohde EVP Global Operations had left Red Hat and that Nick Van Wyk had been promoted VP Global Operations and Senior Transformation Executive. I've never heard of a title like that before, but I suppose it's an acknowledgement of CEO Matthew Szulik's strategy to take Red Hat beyond its roots as the #1 Linux vendor to a more general "open source service and solutions company."
While Red Hat has acquired many companies and technologies over the years, it was the acquisition of JBoss last year that has had the most strategic impact in shaping the future of the company to go beyond the OS. And by some accounts, integrating JBoss into the more buttoned-down Red Hat culture was not always easy. But that's exactly the right thing to do if Red Hat is serious about becoming a billion dollar company. Given Van Wyk's experience at EMC, he appears to have the right background to continue to evolve Red Hat to provide the level of Enterprise support and services that are required. And better to be doing the transformation now, from a position of strength, than further down the road.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 31, 2007 06:38 AM
October 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hey Red Hat, where's the love for Hyperic?
Matt Aslett at The 451 Group reports:
"Red Hat and GroundWork Open Source announced an interesting expansion of their partnership today that sees Red Hat offering 24×7 telephone premium support for GroundWork products, as well as the sale of GroundWork training classes."
I, like every one, wondered why Red Hat went with GroundWork versus Hyperic. At first I thought this is just some piece of marketing from GroundWork, but since the press release has a quote from Red Hat, I have to believe someone over at RH thinks this is a good idea.
It seems strange considering Hyperic is the foundation of the JBoss ON product. What's stranger is that Hyperic isn't listed on RHX under systems monitoring providers (only Zenoss & GroundWork are listed). Javier, what's the deal? :-)
A NetworkWorld review said this about GroundWork's OSS product in June 2007:
"In contrast to Zenoss Core and Hyperic HQ, GroundWork Open Source’s free-for-the-download open source network monitoring and management product, called GroundWork Monitor, is quite basic and lacking in features."
<conspiracy_theory_hat_on> The only thing I can think of is that RH is staying away from Hyperic because of Hyperic's VCs. Accel Partners & Matrix Partners are both Hyperic investors, as they were in JBoss investors. It's well within the realm of possibility that RH executives, after paying over $300M for JBoss, are not eager to jump into bed with Accel or Matrix again. GroundWork's VC's don't include Accel, Matrix or Benchmark (where one of the Accel guys jumped to after the JBoss deal). </conspiracy_theory_hat_on>
Thoughts?
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 30, 2007 12:49 PM
October 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft Oslo: Lacking Interoperability?
First, I'm an IBMer. These are my views. IBM does not necessarily agree with them.
Second, I think most of you will agree that I'm relatively friendly towards Microsoft when they may a positive OSS move. I am not anti-Microsoft just because it's cool to love Apple these days.
With those two items out of the way, I couldn't help but shake my head when reading about Microsoft's Oslo project for "model-centric apps".
An InfoWorld article describes Oslo:
"With Oslo, Microsoft is making investments aligned with a vision to simplify the effort needed to build, deploy, and manage composite applications within and across organizations. The effort builds on model-driven and service-enabled principles and extends SOA beyond the firewall."
Another description comes from Tim Rayburn's blog (via Google):
"Oslo is not a product, but rather an over-arching project which will contain within it updates to many products and services including BizTalk Server, Visual Studio, and more. "
"..extends SOA beyond the firewall"...oh, you mean to companies that aren't Microsoft shops? Great, tell me more! I read and re-read the IW article & Tim's blog to see if there is any mention of non-Microsoft technologies. You know, SOA and especially Composite Applications, are supposed to be about heterogeneous environments. I didn't find a thing that leads me to believe that Oslo has much to do with interoperability. So, "extends SOA beyond the firewall" should really say "extends SOA beyond the firewall from one 100% Microsoft shop to another 100% Microsoft shop"
Next, for those of us who think standards are generally good ideas...IW sets us straight:
"Microsoft's approach is not about Unified Modeling Language (UML), a technology of which Microsoft has not been a big supporter...A modeling language is part of Oslo, but Microsoft is building a modeling language, a set of tools, and a unified repository."
Anywho, it's all vaporware and likely will be well beyond 2010 (Massimo is being overly generous when he suggests 2009):
"It's pretty ambitious, and as a matter of fact, I believe we're not going to see anything concrete until well into 2008 and possibly 2009," said analyst Massimo Pezzini, vice president of the application platform strategies group at Gartner.
Microsoft, open you eyes...your "SOA" customers care about more than .NET and all customers benefit from open standards. This is not a new news.
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 30, 2007 10:42 AM
October 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
We're heading into the home stretch for the Call for Papers for the MySQL Conference & Expo 2008. The official deadline is end of day today, October 30 and so far, we have plenty of great submissions. However, there's still an opportunity to get in your presentation.
In particular, we're looking for more technical presentations on topics like Scale-out, use of Ruby on Rails, use of .Net, High Availability and case studies that show how you're using MySQL in production applications.
It's possible that the call for papers may be extended by a couple of days, but I recommend submitting something sooner rather than later. If there are more details required than you can complete right now, that's ok. You can always send more information after the fact. And special thanks to those who submitted on-time or early. That makes the selection process much easier!
Just a reminder, the conference will be held April 14-17 in Santa Clara, California. The registration for the conference will be live later this quarter. There will also be a full complement of tutorials, keynotes, technical sessions, exhibits, parties, birds-of-a-feather sessions, dot org projects and more. I'm sure it will be a heckuva fun event.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 30, 2007 10:22 AM
October 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hyperic is encouraging IT staff to submit their scary stories to the Hyperic blog for a contest called "Nightmare on Web Street." We've all seen the brutal truth of systems gone wrong. Server rooms overheated. Disk crashes. Backing up incorrectly and wiping out a system by mistake. DNS setups that are so complex no one really understands them. Memory leaks that cause a system to grind to a halt. Weird combinations of versions of software that have never been tested together in the real world. Running a brand new 1.0 application without knowing that you're the first and maybe only customer to use it. This stuff happens more often than anyone would admit.
That's why it always surprises me when companies cheap out on monitoring systems. It's not a question of if something will go wrong, it's about when and how fast you'll be able to correct the situation. If you're having trouble getting your boss's attention on this kind of issue, remind them about what happens when systems aren't available to users. No one wants that type of press coverage to be front page news. A little preventative maintenance and monitoring goes a long way. What's the worst that could happen? Well, the worst is pretty ugly actually.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 29, 2007 02:50 PM
October 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Looks like Fake Larry Ellison has decided to retire his blog. This is unfortunate as it was quite topical and funny. Never did figure out who was behind this, but we had some guesses...
Who do you think was behind this one?
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 29, 2007 10:12 AM
October 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Looks like SCO is preparing to sell off its Unix business for $36 million in order to stave off bankruptcy. Stephen Shankland has posted news over at CNet giving the details. The deal would give SCO some badly needed cash.
While most will interpret this as a last desperate act from a failing company, it's probably good news for long time SCO customers.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 26, 2007 12:16 AM
October 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Getting to know Nuxeo, OSS ECM
I saw a press release about Nuxeo's new product focusing on "SOA". I didn't know what that meant, and didn't know much about Nuxeo. So, off I went to the Nuxeo website. I then asked Nuxeo CEO, Stefane Fermigier a few questions, which he graciously agreed to answer.
Stefane's answer to question #3 is great. After I found out that Nuxeo does ECM software, I asked how they position against Alfresco. In an answer that would make Dave Rosenberg smile, Stefane essentially said, "we don't..we position ourselves and compete against the commercial enterprise vendors". Very cool. I was also pleasantly surprised to hear that Nuxeo's Rich Client Platform (RCP), based on Eclipse RCP, is generating a lot of customer interest.
The interview text follows:
1. What's the license story for Nuxeo?
"The code we write is licensed under the LGPL. Some parts which will be donated to the Eclipse Foundation (as part of the Apogee project) will also be dual-licensed under the EPL. The reason for this is that we want our platform to be reused by as many people as possible, including "traditional" (non open source) ISVs. With the LGPL, if you want to embed our components in your application, you can, with no constraints on your own license. Only if you improve our components, and use them in a publicly available product, are you mandated to provide back your changes to the project."
2. What's the history of Nuxeo?
"We've been in the business of open source information and document management for 7 years. We've started at the worst time to start up a software company (6 months after the first internet bubble crash), but we've been lucky to live in a country whose government was keen on open source at the time (from 2000 to 2005) and later on (2005-now) expanded in the private sector. We've also been smart in several decisions we have made. For example, we partnered with some big names in IT services companies (like Capgemini). We quickly moved up to higher value applications with real enterprise-level impact. We also expanded internationally starting from 2004."
3. How do you position yourselves vs. Alfresco?
"We don't position ourselves against Alfresco ;)Our main competitors are Documentum, OpenText and Filenet (Vignette and Interwoven, which were strong competitors five years ago, seem to have disappeared altogether). We strive to provide similar levels of features and support so as to match the needs of our customers and our ecosystem. Customers usually pit us against these three guys in RFPs, and I would be lying if I told you we win every time, but we almost always end up first or second, which means we're already on par with these market leaders."
4. You website indicates that you get 30% of revenues from "development" - do you mean custom development? Are the features developed then put back into the generally available Nuxeo product?
"Yes, either improvement to the platform or some of its components to address the needs of a specific project, or new components that provide new functionalities, also needed for a specific project. In theory this is not mandatory because the choice to do so is left to the customer. In practice, we almost always end up putting these enhancements in the open source code base (and actually make such developments "live" on externally visible source code repository) because our customers understand that it's the best way to protect their own investments."
5. How have customers reached to Rich Client Platform (RCP) portion of your product line?
"We have not "marketed" the RCP part heavily towards the community, because we were already pretty busy with the server part, but we already have some serious customers. Actually, 50% of our biggest projects (well over several hundred thousand Euros) involve RCP to a certain degree. RCP is a strong driver for our business already. We plan to communicate more about Nuxeo RCP in the following weeks or months, and hope to spur some excitement in the community with this technology too."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 25, 2007 01:26 PM
October 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft To Slim Down Windows
At an ACM presentation at the University of Illinois last weekend, Microsoft's Eric Traut revealed that its working on slimming down the next major release of Windows by starting from a bare-bones kernel known as "MinWin"and then only adding what's necessary. This is a good strategy for Microsoft. If Microsoft are the last people to admit that Windows has become bloated, at least now they're acting on it. Lets face it, they wouldn't have extended selling Windows XP past the original end of year deadline if Vista was selling that well. But don't expect Microsoft to commercialized MinWin or ship a major new Windows 7 release until 2010 at the soonest. (And in the past I've doubled Microsoft's OS schedules and still been off.)
The only question is if they have 200 people already working on this project, that seems like kind of a big team already. Remember, small teams and all that. You can view Traut's presentation as a WMV file here.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 23, 2007 12:30 PM
October 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
How vested are you in your OSS?
A colleague recently made a statement to the effect:
"These developers are really interested in the future plans for WebSphere Application Server. Many of them have invested a significant portion of their career on WebSphere. They have invested time building skills with WebSphere."
I'm wondering whether a developer who has built skills with OSS product A is more, less or equally invested in the product's life than another developer who has built skills with a commercial enterprise product B.
On one hand, it’s simpler, faster and cheaper to get started with an OSS product versus a commercial enterprise product. The lower barriers to entry result in developers championing for a product with their manager/director/CIO. The alternative is having to use the 'corporate standard' with minimal input on the choice (usually).
On the other hand, do the lower barriers to entry for OSS products enable developers to more easily switch their OSS product choice?
On the other, other hand, do the lower barriers to entry simply get the developer in the OSS product door? Once there, they 'invest time' to build skills with that OSS product and are unwilling to give much love to alternative choices, OSS or otherwise? <my vote is on this option>
Thoughts?
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 23, 2007 10:42 AM
October 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) recently surveyed their members about open source and has now published their findings. A few highlights:
-More than one third of the respondents reported that they have deployed an open source database in production, which is a higher rate than for open source tools, frameworks or applications.
-Nearly three-quarters of that group have MySQL installed
-The availability of "express editions" from Oracle, Microsoft and others has not slowed down adoption of open source databases
-Over 50% plan on increasing their use of open source software in the next year
-63% of those using open source databases use it for specific single function systems, 45% for custom home grown, 37% for departmental applications, 34% for customer facing web sites and only 12% each for ERP and BI and 7% for transactional
If you're an IOUG member you can download the survey from their site. Alternatively, since MySQL was a sponsor of the survey, you can get it from our site also.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 23, 2007 06:28 AM
October 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Better Software Through Smaller Teams?
Jim Winstead, one of our top developers, recently sent a link to an article by Bob Warfield "To build better software, you need fewer people." Jim's one of the unsung heroes of MySQL who works like crazy to eliminate bugs whether in the server, in our ODBC driver or lending a hand on various storage engines. But while he's a heads-down hard-working guy, he's also very thoughtful about what makes for good software development. So when he highlights an article, it's always worth reading and figuring out how to apply some of the ideas at MySQL.
In his blog, Bob Warfield points out some of his key findings about developer productivity:
-Keep team size small
-Make things modular so that you can keep teams focused
-Invest in communications tools and infrastructure
-Make sure there's sufficient face time with in-person meetings
-Focus on team chemistry
As it turns out, I know Bob from many years back at Borland. Bob was VP of Engineering for a time and ran the Quattro Pro team, among others. He's started a new stealth mode company recently called Smoothspan and is blogging up a storm.
If you're at all interested in team productivity and how to get better results in software development, check out Bob's blog. Also note the reference to an article in Dr Dobb's Journal by Jim Coplien that described some of the findings and observations of the Quattro Pro for Windows team at Borland. As with most successful projects, it was a small team, but incredibly focused.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 22, 2007 07:15 AM
October 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The OSS Vendor Market Will Consolidate Also
A few days ago I discussed the results of IBM WebSphere's software division as a proxy to measure the much heralded death of traditional software. (Spoiler alert: It's not dying).
"Why is it that proprietary vendors seem to have to consolidate to survive right now? There are very few winners right now: IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP.""It's cute to look at IBM as a bellwether of proprietary health, but I think you're kidding yourself. All I have to look at is the customer wins that my company and others are having. There is a groundswell in motion, and it's foolish to think that it will raise all boats."
Awww shucks, I did something cute ;-)
To Matt's first point, all markets consolidate over time. It's as simple as that. With or without OSS, we would have seen those some 4 vendors dominate the software market.
We see consolidation in OSS markets also. I seem to recall Matt asking what VC in its right mind would invest in a startup going after "OSS markets that are spoken for" a la Red Hat & Linux. I can't find the quote, but I'm 99% sure Matt said it...and hey, I totally agree.
I can guarantee (offer not valid in Quebec) one of two things:
- There will be fewer than 3 'winners' in the OSS vendor space in 10 years. There will be a decent # of startups, but few vendors in the middle. You're either a startup swinging for the big 3, or you're in the big 3. If you're in the middle, you won't be for long.
- There will be zero independent OSS vendors of significance (i.e. > $750M in revenue) in 10 years. They will have been acquired by one of the leading IT vendors in existence today.
I'm betting on #2, but even #1 makes the same point. The software market can't support more than a handful of leading vendors. Niche vendors will, in the long run, lose out to vendors that can offer the broadest set of products.
To Matt's second point: I completely agree that OSS spending is growing and that Alfresco is doing great. Kudos and well wishes. But in the end, it's difficult to compare 1,000% growth vs. 10% growth without considering the base. For context, OSS is only going to represent 1.8% of total software spending by 2011. Is that good? Absolutely. Is it the end of life as we know it in the software market? Difficult to say, but change happens. But change is always less pronounced, and often different, that predicted. Remember, the mainframe's death was predicted decades ago ;-)
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 19, 2007 11:27 AM
October 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Nokia N810 Tablet with Keyboard
Long time readers of this blog or my old one at www.theopenforce.com know I've been very interested in finding a portable internet device with a keyboard. Over the last 20 years, I've probably tried just about every pocketable computer there is ranging from the Poqet, Psion 3, Psion 5, HP100LX, Oqo and many others. The Nokia N800 tablet has been a good device with built-in wifi, but without a keyboard it's never going to be perfect for me.
Engadget scooped the launch of the new Nokia N810 which adds a slide out keyboard while still maintaining a small size, light weight and great browsing experience. I think this puts the N810 miles ahead of the ill-fated and since abandoned Palm Foleo. The N810 is not going to be for everyone though. It's likely not as slick as the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch, but with the keyboard it's a different animal.
Quick summary:
-7.3 ounces (approx 200g)
-5.7 x 3.0 x 0.5 inches
-800 x 480 touch screen display
-Built-in wifi and GPS
-Slide out keyboard
-Linux mameo interface
-Built-in email, media player, Opera browser, Skype support
-2 GB memory + SD card support
-4 hours battery life
-List price $479 (ouch!)
Of course, we'll have to see how the whole package works together, but I think this could be a winner. What do other folks think? Would you buy this instead of a Palm Foleo? What do iPhone users think? Let me know your thoughts...
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 18, 2007 06:54 AM
October 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hassle-free Linux box might be an oxymoron (like government efficiency), but it's an interesting strategy by startup company Zonbu. They have create a small form factor home PC, used a low-end Via CPU, based it on Gentoo Linux and a raft of open source apps and priced it on the cheap. The machine weighs about 2 pounds is the size of a Mac mini, and costs only $99 -- a heckuva deal. The catch: it's diskless and you have to subscribe to online storage (from Amazon S3) for $12.95 per month to get the deal. (Ok, I admit, I don't like the idea of subscribing for storage, but Zonbu claims it's underpowered PC will save in electricity costs.)
Dan Lyons (the real one, not the fake Steve Jobs) has written about it in the latest issue of Forbes. Dan recommends that this could be used as a second PC for kids, the kitchen, the weekend home or when you just need to web surf.
Has anyone tried the Zonbu? Let me know your thoughts! I think this is an interesting and possibly disruptive idea.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 17, 2007 06:40 AM
October 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
For the past six months or so, we've been running MySQL 5.1 for various internal and external applications. MySQl 5.1 has been in beta for quite some time and as we move closer to a GA release, I believe its important for us to "eat our own dogfood" by running the software for most, if not all, of our applications. (The reason it's not all is that I don't have control over all of 'em, but that's a different story.)
Of course, eating your own dogfood is not an entirely pain-free experience, but the idea is that we should be aware of any issues before customers are. Early adopters who used 5.1 a year ago probably suffered more in the process --but they also helped us find bugs. So our bug tracking system, our web site, our forums, several of our customer support systems are all running MySQl 5.1. In fact over the last several weeks we had many of these applications upgrade to our latest release, 5.1.22, an RC or Release Candidate version. Our web team found a few bugs in using replication between different systems and those were quickly fixed.
By putting out 5.1.22 as an RC, we've gotten more feedback from our testers, which is good. We've found some additional bugs we weren't aware of, which helps us continue to improve the quality. And if it takes us a while longer to fix more bugs, then that's what we'll do. But its great to have the combination of internal and external testing. That's one of the things that many closed source companies are starting to learn from open source.
If you're in the business of building software, I think that the principle of eating your own dogfood is a good one to make sure that you are experiencing things just as your users would.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 17, 2007 06:13 AM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The Demise of Traditional Software - 3Q07
Some of you know that I've decided to track the demise ;-) of the traditional software market on a quarterly basis using IBM's WebSphere branded revenue as the basis. I use the WebSphere division for no other reason than it's the part of IBM that I report into. Here are the 2Q07, 1Q07, 4Q06 and 3Q06 posts if you fancy. IBM announced 3Q07 results today.
A few points of interest from 3Q07:
- IBM Software grew at 6% (or 3% at constant currency: i.e. if currency exchange rates were fixed to equal their 3Q06 rates)
- WebSphere branded middleware grew 10%
- IBM's other Software families grew 9%, 3%, 5% and 9% for Lotus, Rational, Tivoli and Information Management respectively
WebSphere middleware growth of 10% is the lowest we've reported in the past year. However, considering the growth we attained in 3Q06 (i.e. 30% Y/Y vs. 14% in 3Q05 & 3Q04), it's not surprising that 3Q07 growth wasn't in the 15%+ range. Remember that the 10% is growth off a large revenue base, which unfortunately, IBM does not make public. But, if you have access to Gartner or IDC data, you can easily get to a ballpark number of total WebSphere branded revenue.
WebSphere Branded Middleware Quarterly Revenue Growth:
| Quarter | Y/Y Qtr Growth | From: |
| 1Q04 | 24% | Source |
| 2Q04 | N/A | Source |
| 3Q04 | 14% | Source |
| 4Q04 | 18% | Source |
| 1Q05 | 11% | Source |
| 2Q05 | 18% | Source |
| 3Q05 | 14% | Source |
| 4Q05 | 4% | Source |
| 1Q06 | 26% | Source |
| 2Q06 | 17% | Source |
| 3Q06 | 30% | Source |
| 4Q06 | 22% | Source |
| 1Q07 | 14% | Source |
| 2Q07 | 28% | Source |
| 3Q07 | 10% | Source |
Fourth quarter is going to be interesting!
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 16, 2007 10:26 PM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Because I've been a hermit over the past few days, I'm only now reading about Sun's open source event earlier this week. Sadly, I wasn't invited (likely because I work at IBM and I'm a peon in the OSS landscape). :-)
Looks like there was more news about Project Indiana, Glassfish, and OpenOffice. I wonder if there's a place to get the presentations that were used?
This statement caught my attention:
"Red Hat has created a project called Ice Tea to make OpenJDK run better in a Linux environment, Reinhold said."
Just because two JDKs pass Sun's test suite doesn't mean there won't be (unexpected) differences in the way they handle the same Java application. Sun's TCK (Technology Compatibility Kit) attempts to minimize the impact of these differences, and generally does a good job, but differences will exist. That's why most ISVs state which JDKs are supported. If your ISV says their Java product runs on all the leading JDKs, it could be that they've tested their app on the Sun, IBM and BEA JDKs. Or it could mean that the ISV has tested with one of these three (or an alternative) and is relying on Sun's TCK tests to ensure there won't be unexpected results on a different JDK. This isn't such a bad strategy 99.99% of the time. But there must be a reason that some ISVs test on multiple JDKs ;-)
I wonder what % of ISVs will be enamored by the news that Red Hat is creating another JDK that could be added to the ISV's test matrix. Being an OpenJDK variant helps if the ISV is already testing with the Sun JDK. But, a little different may be different enough. If Red Hat's JDK doesn't gain much traction (which is my guess, largely because of the ISV testing and support challenges), will Red Hat have spent their time tuning/improving the Sun JDK for RHEL?
Anywho, here's a good description of Ice Tea from a Red Hatter.
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 16, 2007 09:55 PM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Future-proofing NetWare with virtualization
Amid what turned out to be a prophetic warning issued by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and the subsequent but completely unrelated federal lawsuit filed against Novell last week, the Provo, UT, firm quietly pulled NetWare into the present with an option on the future with the release of Novell Open Enterprise Server 2.
Obviously there are many strange coincidences surrounding the Novell (and now Red Hat) lawsuit filed by IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corporation, some of which point to Novell as a possible accomplice in a larger Microsoft conspiracy to bring down Red Hat specifically and Linux in general. I doubt seriously that Novell's relationship with Microsoft has these aims in mind. Quite the contrary, the company's seemingly unholy alliance with Microsoft aims at self preservation. Novell is behaving just as anyone would when faced with potential demise -- do whatever it takes to continue, to survive. Yes, corporations are nothing other than living organisms that want more than anything to persevere.
And that's just what Novell has done with Open Enterprise Server (OES) 2. This release doesn't make the company's SUSE Linux substantially better; it makes NetWare better. With this release of OES, the NetWare kernel (NetWare 6.5 SP7) still exists as a discrete entity, but now it runs within OES on top of the Xen hypervisor. Actually you can run NetWare 6.5 SP7 on either a physical machine or in a virtual machine, employing Xen virtualization. Either way, it's basically the same network services OS (NetWare) running in a paravirtualized environment, where it recognizes when it's running in one environment or the other.
This is a huge deal for the plethora of Novell shops out there with intractable NetWare Loadable Modules (NLMs) and nervous programmers, who are well versed in NLMs but looking for a way to put their know-how to work in an environment with a future. With OES 2, Novell intends to help its customers preserve their NetWare-centric skills and run NetWare-dependent applications, all while gradually migrating to Linux. Actually, with Novell's paravirtualization approach, you'll still need to plunk down 5 percent "new" code to get your old NLMs to run in OES 2. Still, that's a small price to pay for future-proofing a substantial investment in NetWare.
Interestingly, according to Novell's Jeff Jaffe, this paravirtualization allows chip manufacturers, system builders, and application writers to build these islands in the sky that perform as well as or better than traditionally virtualized counterparts.
By allowing portions of the guest operating system and application to be modified to exploit the new hardware, paravirtualization allows much higher performance than previous approaches.
As hardware and software manufacturers collaborate on advancing hypervisors and with both Novell and Red Hat substantially backing and employing the Xen hypervisor project, it's easy to envision this approach stretching the lifespan of many OSes and the applications built to run on those OSes -- not just NetWare. Maybe someday in the not-too-distant future we'll see OES or Red Hat Enterprise Linux running a paravirtualized rendition of Windows Server 2008 as a means of preserving knowledge invested in legacy .Net applications.
Perhaps this thought was weighing on Mr. Ballmer's mind when he issued his foretelling warning last week.
Posted by Brad Shimmin on October 16, 2007 03:00 AM
October 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
What To Do If You're Disrupted
I wrote a couple of articles for www.ondisruption.com recently that I think could be useful to folks in IT. (Important disclosure: this site is run by my brother Mike, a disruption consultant. But luckily, he doesn't pay me, so I don't think there's any conflict here. But let me know if you think I shouldn't post links to things I've written elsewhere.)
The two articles are:
-Are you a sitting duck?
-Should you pack your parachute?
I won't repeat the content here, but I think they are relevant points for Infoworld readers and folks in IT in general. The key points are to identify if your company is being disrupted and then make sure you are doing something about it, if not for your company, for the sake of your career.
I think some of the points are applicable no matter what industry you're in, but I think it's particularly important for old-line companies that may be disrupted by new technologies, whether it's emerging Web 2.0 sites, Software as a Service, smart phones or open source. While not all new technology that sounds disruptive has long term impact, it's important to watch for the warning signs.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 15, 2007 01:00 PM
October 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Man, what a wacky world software has become. Remember when $6.6 billion meant something? It's play money at this point.
Who wins and who loses if Oracle gets BEA?
Oracle: Probably
Oracle has never had a clear story about app servers and despite the successful "Fusion" branding it's never been totally clear on just what makes up Oracle's middleware offering. I think the big boost from buying BEA is that a large percentage of BEA users are also using Oracle. Oracle gets economy of scale out of their sales efforts and fills that piece of the puzzle.
BEA Customers: Maybe
Hard to tell. Weblogic is a good product (if very cumbersome) but I would be concerned that Oracle will just EOL the overlapping products (BPM for example) which BEA sold very hard to their existing user base. Hard to see this one having a happy ending but it seems like Oracle has mostly done right by their acquisition customers.
IBM: Yes
This is a big win for IBM, effectively leaving only small competitors for Websphere.
Red Hat/JBoss: Maybe
I am trying really hard to see this as a good thing for Red Hat. When you consider that the major JBoss server competitor will now be tied up for months as Oracle tries to absorb them it seems like the opportunity is there. On the other hand, it's starting to feel like Oracle is trying to kill Red Hat again. I like to think Red Hat can take advantage of this opportunity but it's a lot to deal with considering the JBoss machine hasn't been functioning on all cylinders. Add to that the fact that Oracle will now have a well-proven suite of SOA products and it gets a bit tougher.
Software Buyers: Nope
This is the biggest problem for me--the fact the choices in the marketplace are even slimmer than before with questionable benefits. It might be easier to buy from one vendor but that doesn't mean you'll like all the products.
Open Source: Yes
Anytime these behemoths get together there is huge risk for them screwing up the acquisition which means the door is open for open source.
Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 12, 2007 01:24 PM
October 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Wow, never a dull moment in the software industry... Oracle has long been rumored to acquire BEA and now they've made a formal offer. I've heard some sources that Oracle's previous attempts to acquire BEA were rebuffed and for a while it looked like they would acquire JBoss instead. Who knows whether they will win this deal or not. I can understand the rationale though. And for BEA, it may be better to offer their products as part of a broader suite than to remain independent as an app server company. There are not too many of those left anymore and I think its because many corporate customers want to get all their infrastructure from one source so that they know it will all work together.
What do users of WebLogic or JBoss think of this possibility? Or is it just some chest-thumping on the part of Oracle to freeze BEA's business?
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 12, 2007 09:40 AM
October 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Oracle makes $6.7B bid for BEA
Via Roy Russo's heads up:
Oracle, in letter to BEA Systems' board, offers cash at a 25% premium; says it seeks friendly acquisition.
"We believe our all cash offer provides the best value for BEA's shareholders and the best home for BEA's employees and customers," said a statement from Oracle President Charles Phillips. "This proposal is the culmination of repeated conversations with BEA's management over the last several years. We look forward to completing a friendly transaction as soon as possible."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 12, 2007 06:19 AM
October 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A couple of weeks ago Hyperic announced their cooperation with JasperSoft to add advanced reporting to their open source systems management tool. Hyperic is interesting because it enables IT managers to get first-class monitoring of LAMP and other infrastructure software, whether it's open source or closed. For example, you can monitor MySQL running on Windows or BEA WebLogic running on Linux or any other combinations.
Now working with JasperSoft you can get Enterprise class reporting built-in which is a great way to show your management what the heck systems management is and why it matters! It's sometimes hard to get management attention without those super-fancy reports. But now its easy to show how the monitoring system is saving time and money by minimizing potential downtime.
And even more importantly, Hyperic is organizing a Wii Smackdown event at their offices in San Francisco challenging Mule and other open source companies. Personally, I'm holding out for a Guitar Hero competition. (Notice: I suck, but I might get some tips from my nephews.)
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 11, 2007 01:14 PM
October 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IBM's Outsourcing Patent Application Withdrawn
Net/Net: The patent application for "outsourcing of services" was filed 8 months before a new IBM policy to reduce business method patents. This one slipped through the cracks of the "new policy". Our bad.
Via Bob Sutor's blog (oldish news):
"IBM has put into the public domain and withdrawn its application for patent number US2007/0162321 - Outsourcing of Services. This patent application covers analyzing work flows, skills, economic costs, etc. Here’s why we are withdrawing it — IBM adopted a new policy a year ago to sharply reduce business method patent filings and instead stress significant technical content in its patents. Even though the patent application in question was filed eight months before the policy took effect in September, 2006, had the policy been in place at the time, IBM would not have filed the application. We’re glad the community pointed this application out so IBM could take swift action."
Two IBM posts in a row...sorry. I thought you'd want to know that we (as is the case with most vendors) generally listen to the community. We (as in all vendors) may not always act, but we listen.
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 11, 2007 08:56 AM
October 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Off-Topic: IBM IMS, 40 yrs Strong
I ran into this piece of PR from IBM today.
"Initially developed to power the Apollo space program, IMS is recognized as the industry's first modern database and transaction management software. Over the past three decades, the reliability, security and performance of IMS has led it to become the backbone for much of the world's corporate data. In fact, almost ninety five percent of Fortune 1000 companies use IMS for their most critical IBM System z data management needs with more than 50 billion transactions running through IMS databases on a daily basis."
I only highlight it because IMS (database & transaction processing system) is nearly 40 years old and customers still see value in it. IMS has added new features and capabilities to remain relevant to customers, but 40 years is a long time for any piece of information technology. There are alternatives to IMS that have emerged, but few (if any?) provide the performance and reliability of IMS for a certain class of applications.
Just another reason why a one size fits all approach in the IT world doesn't make much sense.
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 10, 2007 10:59 AM
October 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
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, IBM or others.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 9, 2007 02:27 PM
October 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The price is right: Next open source business model
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 go for closed source solutions of equal merit.
This short list of positives could fill more than a few blog pages of course, so much so that it's tempting to declare a full-on open source gold rush. Everyone grab a pan and head for San Francisco! It's no wonder, then, that we're seeing so many mainstream vendors jumping headlong into the open source stream, looking for gold. In just the past month or so, unusual suspects such as Intel, Microsoft (in a way), 3Com, ARM, Autodesk, Adobe, and QNX have announced varied projects and programs based on open source software.
Most of these vendors are not rolling out traditional business models, where customers lay down annual subscription dollars in exchange for support, training, education, and such. Rather, many of these vendors are looking to simplify and lower internal development costs, better support ISV partners, or just buy some street cred for solutions that would otherwise be considered frumpy by open source devotees.
With such happy-happy-joy-joy support for open source infusing the software industry right now, I think the industry and open source is ready, and it's mature enough to move on to a more directly profitable business model. What I'd like to suggest is that the open source industry adopt a new (some may call it old) business model that will garner revenue not just from the enterprise, but also from the average consumer. Call it YEPR, Your Estimated Price is Right open source licensing. Think of it as an individualized equity trade, or fair market value as defined by the individual customer. The idea is a lot like donationware, which Wikipedia defines as:
"A reasonably satisfied user is suggested to compensate the programmer if real value or use is achieved from the program. The compensation amount is left up to the discretion of the user. This amount is based on a value the user estimates they derived from the program."
However you want to classify or name it, what I'm suggesting is a model where users, in order to download open source, must pay for the code itself. The trick is that users can name the price they are willing to pay. If the software is worth nothing to them (nothing to be ashamed of), users can declare a value of $0.00. If it's worth $2,000, then that's what it's worth, and that's what it should cost. For a non-enterprise customers, perhaps the value of Red Hat's JBoss Application Server is $10, which is $10 Red Hat wouldn't have received otherwise. For an enterprise customer, perhaps this product is worth far more, assuming that value gets applied toward the cost of a traditional support contract. In that way, YEPR looks like a regular open source model for customers choosing to upgrade to subscription servers.
For an early look at how this might play out within the software industry, consider the popular British band Radiohead. Now divorced from the controlling power of EMI, the band has chosen to pre-release its new studio album, "In Rainbows," with an online shopping cart where users can specify the value they're willing to pay to download the new music. If you think the album is worth 1 pound, that's all you have to pay, simple as that. Users who want a little extra can also purchase a traditional CD "discbox," which includes a bonus CD from the recording sessions, a hardcover book, and a two-record vinyl edition of "In Rainbows."
Interestingly, initial reports indicate that more people have opted for the band's discbox than for the potentially free download. Obviously engaged fans want the works, while more casual interlopers, who may not really know Radiohead, may choose not to pay for this album ... then again, if they really like the music, perhaps they'll simply buy the discbox for "In Rainbows," or they'll drop some dollars down the road for the band's next release.
It can and should be the same for open source customers, who should be given the opportunity to place some value upon the excellent software developed these days. Sure, open source is already free, unlike music (outside of newsgroups and Gnutella). But by creating an environment where software can take on value, ideas like YEPR create a more complete value chain for software and give open source vendors a mechanism to earn revenue outside of the traditional subscription model.
Posted by Brad Shimmin on October 9, 2007 03:00 AM
October 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Bill Hilf Adds Windows Server Marketing Responsibility
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."
Anyone know if a GM of marketing trumps a GM of development/engineering at Microsoft? I guess I’m asking if this announcement means that Bill will help drive changes to the Windows server product? Or is he responsible for having fewer "get the facts" marketing campaigns?
In any case, Microsoft continues in their march towards OSS (and maybe acquiring Red Hat, a Nostradamus-ish prediction of mine).
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 8, 2007 08:14 PM
October 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Steve Ballmer on Open Source, Online and Other
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 matters, Red Hat doesn't."
Matt covers the OSS stuff here.
Steve Ballmer video - The Online Opportunity
Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 8, 2007 01:47 PM
October 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Oct. 12 - Legal Summit for Software Freedom
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 12, 2007, 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. EST
WHERE: Columbia Law School, William and June Warren Hall, Room 107, 1125 Amsterdam Ave., between 115th and 116th Streets, Manhattan, New York. Via subway: #1 train to 116 Street (Broadway)/Columbia University.SPEAKERS: Eben Moglen , Dan Ravicher, Richard Fontana, Matt Norwood, Karen Sandler and James Vasile, each of whom are attorneys at SFLC. Topics include licensing, copyrights and patents, and corporate issues related to Software Freedom. Continuing Legal Education credit for New York is available to those who pre-register.
The Summit is free, but pre-registration is requested. More information, including how to register, is available at http://www.softwarefreedom.org/summit/ .
If you're in the NY area and attend, drop us a line with your comments. Eben is an amazing public speaker (even though I sometimes disagree with some of his views).
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 8, 2007 10:54 AM
October 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
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 (partner / rival / customer / ex-girlfriend) (insert name here) for (patent infringement / OSI compliance / a billion dollars / dinner and a movie). It seems that (the OOXML spec / GPL 3 / the Linux kernel / AJAX / iPod Touch) is (too hard to pronounce / too hard to use / written in Finnish / too little too late / too much too soon). I say lets take all the (licenses / Linux code / lawyers / guns / money) and shove it (into a MySQL database / where the sun don't shine / down the drain / out to the community and call it a Beta version).
I had the same feeling of (deja vu / excitement / nausea / deja vu) when I (upgraded IE7 / downloaded napster / bought the iPhone / pulled into Nazareth / played Guitar Hero with my nephew.) Sure it (works / rocks / sucks) but at least it's (compatible with / incompatible with / better than) (a poke in the eye / Windows / No Doz / plain clothes) and anyways, you don't need a (weather man / clean nose / fire hose) to know which way the wind blows. Or do you, Mr. (Jones / Jagger / Jobs / Dewey, Screwem & Howe)?
Maybe this is a (good thing / bad thing / summertime fling) and (I've got it wrong / written a song / stayed too long / banged a gong). I've always thought that (building an open source business / writing a blog / the answer, my friend) is (like running a marathon / like cycling from Pittsburgh to DC in the rain / way too much work / blowing in the wind). In the end, everyone (wins / finishes / crashes / drinks too much).
But maybe (Matt Asay / Stephen O'Grady / Linus Torvalds / my brother Mike / Dave Beckham) had it right when he said (US soccer / open source / Linux / Red Hat) is like (a match between 9 year old girls team and Arsenal / taking a page out of Microsoft's history / falling off a log / disruptive, man.)
What do you think? Maybe I'm (all wet / completely out of ideas / not really listening). Let me know your thoughts. You can (post comments below / get your own darn blog / say what you like, I'm on vacation.)
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 5, 2007 05:42 AM
October 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Scott McNealy's Five Reasons for Going 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 JS lined up for one of our Open Season podcasts later this year. When the time comes we'll solicit questions from the peanut gallery.
Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 4, 2007 09:17 PM
October 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Open Season Podcast Episode Four--Mark Shuttleworth
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
Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 4, 2007 03:35 PM
October 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft is Taking its Lead from OpenJDK
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 offering the *allusion* of allowing multiple distributions, based on the original Microsoft code, is a natural progression.
I stress *allusion*, because it's quite unlikely that we'll see tens of .NET runtime distributions beyond the two we have today (i.e. the official MSFT distro & Mono). At most there'll be 3 distros in the future. Microsoft will create a JCP-like committee to guide the .NET community, (following the lead from Sun in the Java world).
To me, this move is step 1 of 3 towards replicating what Sun has done with OpenJDK. Step 2 is allowing user contributions and step 3 would be launching opendotnet.org. When Microsoft gets to step 3, there will be the same allusion of "anyone can contribute and fork if they like". But at the end of the day, there will be privileged distro from a single vendor, and that vendor gets to decide what goes into the distro. Few individual developers will waste their time trying to compete via an alternative distro in an unfair fight.
At least then, .NET will be truly open source and the masses will cheer, as they did with OpenJDK.
Somebody at Microsoft should register opendotnet.org soon....
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 4, 2007 08:06 AM
October 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
User Responses to MSFT releasing .NET 3.5 Source
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 an opinion
Here are some quotes:
"Fantastic news...next step, user check-ins :-) Kidding, but this is really amazing news!"
"Microsoft is taking one more step to the open community / world."
"This is going to be SO helpful, esp. in WinForms and ASP.NET. I've spent too many hours looking at IL (well, before there were such nice decompilers) trying to figure out things in those frameworks. Thanks!"
It seems that the news is being well received by developers currently in the Microsoft camp. Yes, this is like preaching to the choir, but at least the choir is happy...
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 4, 2007 07:28 AM
October 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Track Comments Across the Web?
Wouldn't it be cool if there was a way to track comments across blogs and discussion sites such as slashdot or TSS? Maybe this capability exists, and if so, PLEASE enlighten me. If not, I am happy to take credit for the idea that someone will implement and become a hundred thousandaire.
Here's the problem:
We all have 100s or feeds that we follow in our trusty RSS reader of choice. If you're like me, and read about 10% of the feeds that are tracked, you quickly realize that there are a handful of people on the Interweb whose opinions you respect and want to follow daily. Following their blogs via RSS does the trick 75% of the time. I'm beginning to think that the other 25% is just as important. For example, I follow what Roy Russo says on his Loopfuse blog. But I almost missed when he posted the following comment on Marc Fleury's blog:
In response to a user who posted a comment in Chinese (which, for the most part, few of us in North America would be able to understand).
Roy Russo said... I agree with the chinese guy. September 28, 2007 7:12:00 AM PDT
ROTFL....I fear that I'm missing witty comments like this all the time.
Actually, a better example is Bill Burke's comments during a TSS discussion on the bind that Interface21 & SpikeSource are in. Bill made some great points and I almost missed them because he made them on TSS (which I seldom read on a daily basis) versus his blog.
I used to tag all my comments with a del.icio.us "comment-SavioRodrigues" tag, but that became cumbersome very quickly. I want the ability to automagically attribute all my comments on the Interweb, regardless of website or username, to some comprehensive pile in the sky. If you have a wordpress.com username, this is possible, but only on wordpress.com blogs. I'm looking for this capability to be extended across domains and online properties. I know I'd use this feature to keep better tabs on what folks like Bill, Matt, Roberto, Alex or the Redmonk guys are saying.
I can't be alone here...
Maybe someone in OSS land can help? (I can write the hello world portion of the code in BASIC to get us started!)
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 3, 2007 03:47 PM
October 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A patent trolling dream--Microsoft lets you look but not touch .NET libraries
Microsoft is releasing its .Net Framework libraries under the Microsoft Reference License, which allows viewing of source code but not modification or redistribution.
Despite my chronic proclamations of conspiracy theories, this whole thing seems like a bad idea.
Basically, you tacitly agree to the license and then get to see the code. What happens when something patented or copyright from the MS frameworks make their way into other products (probably accidentally but a huge amount of software is based on the same design patterns.) Does Microsoft agree to not sue? Nope.
It would seem wise to avoid anything released under this half-baked Microsoft Reference License. Why wouldn't Microsoft want developers to use the libraries anyway? Why not just GPL it? For that matter, why not Apache the libraries.
Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 3, 2007 01:59 PM
October 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
When I joined MySQL four years ago, there was quite a lot of debate about product management. We didn't actually have any product managers and the view in Engineering was "we don't need 'em." The rationale was that we were so far behind in implementing features requested by customers that there was no need to have another opinion. "We already know exactly what we need to do" or "The Community tells us what we should focus on" were typical responses.
It took me a while to convince people that product management could add value in helping to prioritize things and make sense out of sometimes conflicting views from customers, users and partners. But every time I would bring up the discussion it ended up as a theoretical debate over who would decide what.
So I decided on a different approach. I just put up the resumes of two of the folks we were considering hiring and showed them their backgrounds. They had tons of hands on experience with multiple databases, had worked for more than 10 years as DBAs, had written technical articles and books about database technology and had become advocates for MySQL within their companies. Then I asked the question: could guys like this help us?
By focusing on the skills of the candidates rather than the grey areas of the role, it became a much more productive discussion. Everyone saw that they brought a real world perspective that would be valuable. And we were successful in recruiting the candidates. A few months later, the question became "Where do we get more guys like this."
Product management is not an easy function to perform or define. I did the job for 10 years and still have trouble explaining exactly what it does. Mostly its about making sure you build a product that people will care about and solves real problems customers have.
One of the things that makes the job challenging is it suffers from the imbalance of responsibility (lots of it) and authority (none of it). A PM needs to be a strong customer advocate and also a diplomat to work with Engineering. Having good product management on board has helped us immensely to make sure we are focused on solving the right problems. Its not a panacea; at the end of the day, Engineering has to deliver on making sure the product does what it's supposed to do and has the performance and ease of use to make it successful. But hopefully guidance from Product Management makes the Engineering job more focused.
Product management is an important investment for open source companies that want to get better at meeting customer needs. You can find out more about product management at the web site www.PragmaticMarketing.com. There's a particularly good article called "Who Needs Product Management?" There's also a humorous blog called www.TheCrankyPM.com. And also some good war stories by David Pogue of the New York times from years gone by.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on October 3, 2007 12:59 PM
October 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Off-topic: The quest for Perfect Pizza
The SF Chronicle is in search of the perfect pizza and interviewed one of buddies, Anthony Mangieri, owner of Una Pizza Napoletana in NYC, whose pizza would be my choice for last meal prior to Electric Chair (though I am hoping that's not my way out of this life.)
"It hurts me, because they act as if I'm trying to get something over on them. I wish I had the nerve to charge $50, because that's what it's worth."
The pizza is so delicious it will bring a tear to your eye and you'll offer to pay whatever you have just to get another one.
Posted by Dave Rosenberg on October 3, 2007 12:50 PM
October 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Many of you may have heard that Matthew Aslett is over at The 451 Group now.
Matthew has been tracking VC funding to OSS vendors for quite some time now. Matthew reports that VC funding to OSS vendors in 3Q07 decreased 42% to $78M from $133M in 3Q06. To the end of 3Q, $267M has been invested vs. $339M last year. However, 2006 was a banner year for OSS firms receiving VC funding. As the OSS market matures, we'll surely see VC funding decline as the VCs find the next new thing. Matthew explains that while the total investments may be declining, Series A investments in OSS are up and mature OSS vendors are getting acquired:
"The level of investment via seed and Series A funding rounds actually increased for the second quarter in succession, while the big money for established vendors went on M&A activity rather than venture funding."
Few could argue that we seem to be moving into the OSS vendor consolidation stage of the lifecycle (for most oss markets). I wonder how many OSS vendors will remain 'oss vendors' by October 2009. At the end of the day, the large OSS vendors that can acquire smaller OSS vendors number in the handful. And, Oracle could buy all the large OSS vendors in an afternoon....sigh.
It'll be interesting to see how much Citrix or Yahoo! have to write off (a la Skype) in a few years to account for the premiums they paid for XenSource & Zimbra respectively. I'm thinking that Citrix won't as they'll be acquired by Microsoft. Yahoo! on the other hand...
PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 3, 2007 10:05 AM
October 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Off-Topic: Pick a number from 0-99
There are 50 people in a room. Each is asked to pick a number from 0 to 99. The winning number will be calculated by taking two-thirds of the average of the numbers picked by the 50 people. What number would you pick in order to win?
Scroll down.
Scroll down a little more.
Some common answers:
- 33: All things equal, in a random, normally distributed sample, the average would be 50. So, taking 2/3 of 50 = 33.
- 0: As above, but, since everyone "should" follow the above line of thinking, take 2/3 of 33. But wait, everyone should do this also, so take 2/3 of 2/3 of 33. Continue until you've multiplied by two-thirds all the way to nearly 0.
From a statistics standpoint, 33 is the "right" answer. But, this answer undervalues the level of thinking that others will apply to the problem.
From a game theory standpoint, 0 is the "right" answer. But, this answer presupposes that everyone "will think through the problem to the same degree as you".
To win, you really want to balance between the above two approaches. If you expect that most will pick 33, then taking 2/3 of 33 = 22 will be a "good" pick with a "good" chance of winning.
When this test was administered to 5 different classes with ~50 students in each class, the average number picked was 34.72, meaning that the winning number would be ~23.
I bring this up because the professor went on to explain that most companies make business decisions that resemble picking "33" in this scenario. Companies typically tend to ignore the thinking of others (competitors or customers) when making a business / technical decision.
I'm sure OSS vendors & enterprise software vendors are equally guilty of this.
Posted by Savio Rodrigues on October 2, 2007 06:53 PM
October 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
From Internet 'Traffic' to Open-Source 'Community'
Gary Little from Morgenthaler has an insightful post titled From Internet 'Traffic' to Open-Source 'Community' on the subtleties between traditional, OSS, and consumer marketing.
Both consumer Internet and open-source companies deliver their primary services through the Web. To do so, each attempts to build an attractive Web “property” filled