December 18, 2003 | Comments: (0)
Am I missing something here?
Last week, a well-known member of the open source movement, Apache founder Brian Behlendorf, talked about how open source was on the cusp of mass acceptance.
But Behlendorf, speaking at a conference entitled, "Open Source: Practical Solutions for Real World Problems," noted most people in the audience probably still had Windows on their laptops. He also suggested that companies are not willing to give up their "cash cow" software to open source.
Pardon me, but am I missing something here? Do people make money in a capitalist system by giving things away?
I know there are vendors such as MySQL and Red Hat, who have had some success giving up their software for free under the GPL while also selling it under a commercial license with added perks such as support. Behlendorf noted that using software via a Web site also is becoming an alternative to buying a software product.
But can the open source model be extrapolated out to the entire software industry?
An attorney at the open source event raised the question of whether someone could inadvertently contribute something to open source that technically is his employer's property. Hence, everybody needs to earn a buck somehow, and giving away software may not be the way to do it.
The open source and Linux community is a devoted one. A few years ago I covered a Linux event even though I was not feeling well that day and filed an article. The piece showed up on a Linux devotees' site the next day, replete with a line-by-line critique.
Perhaps 2004 will be the year the question gets answered as to how much market share open source software can take away from commercial software. We shall see.
Posted by Paul Krill on December 18, 2003 02:13 PM
December 18, 2003 | Comments: (0)
The anti-spam bill not withstanding, we all know it probably won't put a dent in the number of worthless emails you receive. And this trash will also soon be showing up on your wireless devices as well.
So what to do?
Well, here's what we did in the olden days when we used to receive fax spams. We would respond to the spam by taping one end of the page to the other end as it passed the scanner thus putting the response into a never ending loop tying up the spammers fax machine for as long as you wanted to keep doing it.
Yes, I realize our office fax was also tied up but the sheer joy of fighting back made it all worthwhile.
So, my question to our smart readers out there, is there the moral equivalent of the fax loop that can be perpetrated on the current crop of spammers?
Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on December 18, 2003 01:21 PM
December 16, 2003 | Comments: (0)
Welcome to the season of giving. If you haven't realized it yet we're all getting a heaping, stinky pile of coal from our government this year. And it arrived today!
As expected, President "ultimate penalty" Bush signed into law the very first national anti-spam bill. In theory it sounds great, but it's not. Not for cosumers, at least. Egg nog with your government intervention, anyone?
For starters the bill now lets any business or marketer send out messages to anyone with an e-mail address. The catch is the marketers have to clearly identify themselves and honor consumer requests to be removed from the list. So to clarify, you'll be getting even more spam, legally, and NOW you have to actually request removal.
Let's say you do elect to opt out. Good for you. You've have just confirmed your email address is functional and it will now be sold to other spammers. Oh and that same marketer may not actually honor your request for removal.
Oh and let's not forget that only the most successful and feared spammers have already set up shop offshore- far away from the reach of the new federal laws. The same laws that supercede, stricter, perhaps even better state laws already in place.
Don't get me wrong, it is progress, but this law is not going to help you as a consumer or an email adminstrator. Instead you should continue to investigate anti-spam software solutions, which are vastly improved. Our Test Center group just recently reviewed five anti-spam products here or download the PDF.
Posted by Scott Tyler Shafer on December 16, 2003 03:34 PM
December 11, 2003 | Comments: (0)
I was dreamin' when I wrote this
Forgive me if it goes astray...
I wonder if by 'dreamin'' Prince meant hungover? I digress. Anyway last night was almost like a dream- a faded memory of day's past in a city that once was electric with excess and enthusiasm.
After work an InfoWorld colleague and I ventured up to North Beach here in San Francisco to attend a lavish party hosted by Seven, a mobile software start-up founded by serial entrepreneur Bill Nguyen. As soon as I stepped on the red carpets of the 52 year old Bimbo's 365's Club, I was brought back to a time when private weekday parties hosted by technology companies were as plentiful as parking is today in San Francisco - 1999.
So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999...
To my pleasant surprise, Seven spared no expense. The free booze was not limited to wine, beer and well; and the delicious food included everything from jumbo shrimp to veggie shish kabobs; and even the tchotchke wasn't pedestrian- a sleek torch lighter that doubled as a compass.
I was dreamin' when I wrote this
So sue me if I go 2 fast...
Lest I forget the highlight of the night- a private performance by Grammy nominated band- Fountains of Wayne. You know the brilliant quartet that put model Rachel Hunter in its video for the track- Stacy's Mom.
The band played an hour plus long set and even covered ZZ Top's 'Sharp Dressed Man' as about 200 attendees, namely Seven employees, partners, customers and media types like Cathleen Moore and I danced alongside a very joyful and proud Bill Nguyen.
Cuz they say two thousand zero zero party over,
oops out of time
So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999...
I do have a point and here it is. Last night was a great reminder that the entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well in the technology industry. It was also fantastic to know there are companies that still recognize the need to award its employees for their hard work with a party worthy of such praise.
Now back to 2003...
Posted by Scott Tyler Shafer on December 11, 2003 11:59 AM
December 11, 2003 | Comments: (0)
Apple is hiring away Oracle sales people to help them target enterprise accounts, says a deep throat at Apple. In fact, according to this source Larry Ellison also gave his blessing to hire away a top Oracle sales executive for the new Apple sales team Jobs is assembling.
Apple appears to be serious about cracking the enterprise. Although that
statement should not be misconstrued. They are in the enterprise but not in commodity numbers. They are usually found in art and advertising departments, and in some niche industries as well government and education.
X serve with Xserve RAID, Unix and good application management tools makes Apple an appealing choice, especially when priced against Sun or HP.
The only irony here is that Sybase, another software vendor that makes an excellent database used in the biggest financial markets is a strong Apple proponent. It would be a shame if somehow Apple cozies up to Oracle at the expense of Sybase.
Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on December 11, 2003 10:23 AM
December 10, 2003 | Comments: (0)
Web services management field getting crowded
The coming year could be make or break for Web services management players.
Smaller companies such as Actional, AmberPoint and Blue Titan have focused on offerings in Web services management, providing functions such as monitoring of SOAP messages to boost the use of Web services integration technology.
But the big boys are getting involved, too.
Computer Associates this week launched its Unicenter Web Services Distributed Management package. Coverage of that prompted a "Me, too," email from Hewlett-Packard, with a representative expressing disappointment that HP was not noted as a Web services management player in the story on CA.
Vendors such as HP and CA can leverage their longstanding management platforms, respectively OpenView and Unicenter, in pursuing business opportunities in Web services management. The neophyte companies have to get by on innovation without a legacy of providing name-brand management systems.
So, with major, established vendors joining the Web services management game, it will be interesting to see if the smaller players stand on their own, fade away or are bought out by a larger company.
Posted by Paul Krill on December 10, 2003 11:45 AM
December 10, 2003 | Comments: (0)
Not your father's tax software company
Known almost exclusively for its tax and accounting software offerings, Intuit is expanding into other areas including the enterprise software segments of collaboration and CRM. Two years ago Intuit acquired Turning Mill Software, rebranded the technology, has since gained traction within corporate workgroups and small businesses.
I had lunch earlier this week with Jana Eggers, general manager and director of Intuit's Innovation Lab and QuickBase, to learn a bit more about product and its direction.
QuickBase is a hosted service that combines collaboration, content management, and Web based database features. It can be used for sales force automation, CRM, bug tracking, collaboration, and project and document management. The company is aiming at the enterprise workgroup level, and counts companies like PayPal, US Fleet Insurance, Ventana Medical Systems, and Girl Scouts among its customers.
Intuit is ramping up its messaging about QuickBase, and will come out with news early next year around integration and partnerships as well as new feature development. Future areas of development for the offering include single sign on, more enterprise integration, project archiving, and the capability to save directly to Web drives.
The company finds itself going up against Microsoft's SharePoint often, Eggers said. The difference between the two offerings is that SharePoint is designed to provide a single view into many different types of data, whereas Intuit's QuickBase provides different views of a variety of data types personalized to how each user thinks about or uses the data.
Posted by Cathleen Moore on December 10, 2003 11:25 AM
December 09, 2003 | Comments: (0)
What will Santa bring this year?
It's that time of the year again. No, I'm not talking about the holidays or when the weather starts to turn for the worse, but when companies run out of news and begin discussing its plans for next year with reporters.
Very rarely is hard news gathered from these discussions, yet as intended they do provide insight into what is to come in terms of future products. Even more useful is cobbling these discussions together to understand what to expect from the industry as a whole.
With that said I talked with Checkpoint today and they again reiterated its plans to move beyond perimeter security and begin tackling internal and Web security.
Early next year they'll presumably release a network-based appliance that is designed to block specifically defined traffic. This means the use of access control like lists that work in reverse. Instead of defining what is accepted, administrators can define what they don't want.
They will also address Web security with a SSL VPN product that provides application security and reduces the need for multiple sign-ons. Both the Web and Internal security products will leverage Checkpoint's existing management framework and apply its hallmark inspection expertise, so they say.
What these announcements illustrate on a macro level is that security vendors, including the big boys, are ready to collapse more functions into a single box. This decision has been made too by companies like ISS, Network Associates, and NetScreen.
I'm concluding, maybe obviously, that the security industry has reached an inflection point. I'm no prognosticator (I am a procrastinator though), but I can expect the life of network managers will likely get easier with the introduction of more multi-function devices. That is if these vendors really work hard on its management schemes. This move to multi-function devices next year also means the industry will likely further consolidate. Expect to see more acquisitions like NetScreen's pick up of Neoteris- a SSL VPN manufacturer.
I'll have a few more of these meetings in the following weeks and expect to hear more of the same. Is that what you are seeing or you already stuck in a blizzard?
Posted by Scott Tyler Shafer on December 9, 2003 03:54 PM
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