This week's Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco surprised me: I thought the content was, on balance, the best it's ever offered.
In part this stems from a new pragmatism that has settled on the commercial open-source world, where we're increasingly striving to solve customers' business problems, not vendors' business-model problems. It shows up in some of the event's discussions--a few of which are captured in Matt Aslett's excellent OSBC synopsis and in Dries Buytaert's OSBC wrap-up.
North Bridge Venture Partners' Michael Skok came up with one of my favorite lines from the conference, as detailed in Aslett's post:
If we have a better product, and it happens to be open source, we're going to win. But it has to be in that order.
The application of open source to business was highly pronounced in the various keynotes, in particular those delivered on the second day of the conference by Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, Microsoft President of North America Robert Youngjohns, and IBM Vice President of Linux and Open Source Bob Sutor.
Stephen Walli captures the gist of their various presentations and gives the winning ticket to Sutor. As Walli notes, Sutor bucked the trend in the other keynotes to describe open source as "just about business," insisting instead that "it's NOT about business. It's about solving hard problems."
That's a great distinction, and an important reminder.
Microsoft, for its part, asked the open-source community to judge it by its actions. Its actions have hardly been consistent, and many have been destructive of open source as Dana Blankenhorn argues. Still, I'm hopeful that the vocal minority within Microsoft will power the company to more transparent, open communications with the world.
What may be happening, however, is that Microsoft is adopting open-source principles to power the proliferation of SharePoint. As ZDNet's Oliver Marks highlights, it's free to evaluate, offers community-based add-ons, and has widespread distribution via Microsoft attaching a free version to every copy of Windows Server.
SharePoint is quickly becoming Microsoft's next operating system, as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has confirmed, with customers required to use it in conjunction with Microsoft's other software.
It's a one-way street into Microsoft, with a proprietary data repository to make it difficult and expensive to get out. Cisco Systems is fighting back, as is IBM, but few have figured out how to distribute as efficiently as Microsoft. Open source may be the only alternative to Microsoft.
Is this what we can expect the proprietary software world to learn from open source--distribution efficiency but not the freedom that accompanies it in open source? If this is all we get from the new pragmatism in open source, we'll go backward, not forward.
This was the best OSBC ever, with standing room only on the first day, and full sessions throughout. But if the lessons we're learning are simply enhanced ways to lock in customers, we're going in the wrong direction.
Disclosures: I am chair of the Open Source Business Conference and vice president of business development for Alfresco, an open-source competitor to Microsoft SharePoint, which surely factors into my view on SharePoint.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
If Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz is distracted by an alleged Sun takeover by IBM, he didn't show it Wednesday in his Open Source Business Conference keynote speech, which focused on the commercial opportunities that follow in the wake of the world's massive open-source adoption. "Open source is now a given," said Schwartz, "What's interesting is what comes next."
Jonathan Schwartz @ OSBC
(Credit: Zack Urlocker)It's an intriguing question to be asked by the CEO of the world's largest open-source company, but one that investors (and IBM?) increasingly demand of Sun. Based on his answers, Sun may well have a bright future, despite the fact that time is working against it.
But Schwartz is wicked smart, and very persuasive. It's now just a question of convincing prospective customers and his employees to follow his lead.
Lead to where? In a nutshell, and as communicated on his blog, Sun's open-source strategy is as follows:
Step 1: Freely drive engagement/adoption;
Step 2: Execute with fantastic commercial innovation;
Step 3: Connect the two
Actually delivering on this vision is harder than articulating it. "It's not enough to simply make software freely available," said Schwartz. "Those companies that do this are missing significant commercial opportunity."
What is that opportunity? Schwartz rhetorically asked, "What is the next big revenue opportunity?" He answered, "The cloud." Emphasizing that the cloud enables Sun to deliver value that scales to its open-source user base: the cloud is the key to turning users into customers.
Sun's cloud services won't be free. They will, however, be built on open standards, open source, and open data. It's very similar to Canonical's emerging strategy for Ubuntu. The cloud enables Sun to deliver "closed" value while promoting it through open-source distribution.
It's a very compelling vision, and one that I think we'll see a range of open-source companies (and "proprietary" companies) follow suit. Sun is providing an exceptional example of how to turn downloads into dollars.
Disclosure: I am the founder of the Open Source Business Conference and continue to serve as its program chair.
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SAN FRANCISCO--In case you weren't able to attend the Open Source Business Conference today, or simply arrived too late to hear my opening remarks, I shared this video to illustrate how open source is rising...even as the economy falls.
Enjoy.
OSBC2009 - Welcome Video.
Every year, spring brings gives us two things: another rendition of the Open Source Business Conference and rumors of Oracle buying Red Hat, plus various other activities related to open-source consolidation.
In years past, OSBC has taken flight with rumors of Zend (false!), JBoss (true!), MySQL (true!), etc. on the block, with Oracle often the proposed buyer.
This year is no different, as Barron's has obliged by printing yet another rumor that Oracle is planning to invade Raleigh, N.C., to take Red Hat captive.
The source of the rumor is Katherine Egbert, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. The substance for the rumor?
Well, there isn't any.
The only proffered clue is Oracle's "history of organically entering new markets and driving the perceived value of the incumbents before ultimately buying shares." There's just one problem: while Oracle did arguably try this with its Unbreakable Linux rip-off of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the effort has failed to cram down Red Hat's market capitalization.
Indeed, Red Hat remains one of the few companies (along with Oracle) to outperform a suffering market. While a Red Hat acquisition right now wouldn't price Red Hat at its peak, Red Hat also isn't trading at a huge discount.
While there are difficulties inherent in an Oracle acquisition of Red Hat--it's doubtful that IBM would be very pleased with the move, for example--I personally believe the combination could make a lot of sense, and is almost inevitable as Oracle seeks to outflank its primary competitor, Microsoft.
But I've seen no signs that it's happening anytime soon. And again, for all the reasons Egbert points to as hints of Oracle's interest in buying Red Hat, those same signs suggest that Oracle would do better to wait until Red Hat trades at a more pronounced discount to historical highs.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
I posted the OSBC (Open Source Business Conference) Call for Papers a few weeks back, but not very clearly. (I tried too hard to include a picture of Utah snow.) Proposals have been coming in, and I've got the conference agenda 50 to 60 percent full now.
Given all the market turmoil, I'm expanding the conference theme a bit. It had been focused on "Open Sourcing the Enterprise," meaning, finding new ways to turn users of open source into contributors to open source, inspired by Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst. This will continue to be a primary theme.
Added to it, however, I'd like to see more on how companies are using open source to save money and drive innovation through the downturn. Fox and others will be presenting on this. I'd also love to hear from the vendor side on strategies for using open source to fuel adoption, community, and cash in a recession.
You can submit a proposal online. OSBC 2009 is being held in San Francisco on March 10-11, 2009.
(Credit:
Jon Williams)
A few weeks ago Steve Pearson (CBS) and Jon Williams (Kaplan Test) keynoted the Open Source Business Conference. In the past week, both have opted to leave their employers to join other companies.
There must have been something in the water at OSBC. :-)
Steve hasn't told me where he's going, but Jon will be joining iVillage as its new CTO. If NBC's iVillage was looking for an open source savvy, innovative and entrepreneurial CTO, it couldn't have done any better.
At any rate, if you want a new job, please ask me about OSBC keynote opportunities.
InfoWorld has posted all of the presentations from the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC). There were some exceptional presentations filled with good information. I'd encourage you to take a look.
I hate to keep beating this drum, but I read Stephen O'Grady's report on Brad Smith's keynote at the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) and thought it was worth highlighting. Stephen isn't prone to exaggeration or zealotry. So when he writes these words, it's worth considering:
Microsoft has a standing annual legal bill, we're told, of ~$100 million dollars to defend itself from patent related litigation. Unless the licensing revenue stream easily eclipses that amount, why is the current system worth defending? Why does Microsoft insist on speaking out in defense of a mechanism that appears, if anything, to negatively impact its shareholders? It seems like a flawed equation.
... Read more
In case you wanted the slides from my opening remarks at the Open Source Business Conference, you can access them here. I've stored them with Adobe Share, a cool service powered by Alfresco. (It's also cool that Adobe mentioned what they're using, as Dave notes.)
Unfortunately, I don't yet have the two videos from both days available on YouTube. I have to mux the source because it keeps stripping out the video (leaving only the audio track) when I upload it to YouTube or convert it to .mov, .wmv, etc.
There are some good charts on open-source adoption in the presentation that you might find useful.
Jim Whitehurst is a quick study. Matthew Szulik delivered the opening keynote at the Open Source Business Conference 2007, while his successor, Jim Whitehurst, will be opening up OSBC 2008 (March 25-26, San Francisco).
Like Matthew before him, Jim's keynote promises to spark some fireworks. Here's the abstract I just received:
Open Source and True Innovation
Open Source is the driving force behind the true innovation that happens daily in the community. True open source innovation is what drives value. Hybrid open source strategies cause confusion and sub-par customer experiences.
... Read more
