Archive for the 'Business' Category
Friday, February 1st, 2008
Microsoft! Really! Wants! Yahoo!
Wow, you know a company is desparate to acquire into a space when they’re paying 60% plus premiums… there goes a MySQL and Linux user…
Microsoft said Friday it has offered to acquire Yahoo in a proposed cash and stock deal valued at $44.6 billion.
Microsoft said it had offered to buy Yahoo for $31 per share, which it said represented a 62 percent premium above the company’s closing stock price on Nasdaq on Thursday.
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
Automattic nets nearly $30M in financing
Wow! This is great news for Matt and the team behind WordPress. It’s always nice when one of your customers loves your product so much they invest in you! Matt Mullenwig covers his own news here.
Automattic, the commercial arm of the popular WordPress publishing platform for blogs, has received $29.5 million in financing from four companies, including a small portion from The New York Times Company.
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
And the best Sun/MySQL Acquisition Analysis Award goes to…
drumroll please…
Jeff Gould. [applause]
Jeff’s analysis is dead on in my opinion and I found his application of business forces and behavior offers an analytical lens focusing on the real impact with great clarity. I’ve yet to see anyone prove MySQL can provide investors return on $1B using any conventional financial decision model. I’d like to also congratulate Oracle on a great move … (via Sun). Sometimes the smart thing to do is have one of these shirts on when you visit Redwood City (notice the arrow points in the right direction).
Anyway, you can read Jeff’s take here:
http://www.interopnews.com/news/can-sun-make-mysql-pay.html
BTW, if you’re curious, Mr. “My Sox stole your Tribe’s training program” O’Grady forced a very close, ballot-chad recount, second place finish with a very complete analysis over a Redmonk.com.
Update: It does appear Mr. O’Grady may contest the recount and this may drag on a while longer.
Friday, January 4th, 2008
AP Interview with Red Hat’s new CEO, Jim Whitehurst
I like Jim already after reading this interview.
“We are working to democratize information,” Whitehurst said. “A lot of people don’t see the importance of that. But, ultimately, it is about information freedom and making sure information’s accessible.
“If we don’t fight those battles now, our entrenched competitors will lock up file formats, force you to use their software or force royalties,” he added. “Then the information stored in those formats will no longer be free.”
Friday, December 21st, 2007
Daryl Stokes from IBM on open source virtualization
This looks like a great webinar (just landed in my inbox so I haven’t looked at it yet). I work with Daryl on a regular basis and am always impressed. Daryl also brought in Tony Iams from Ideas International who has a good knack for delving into the OS and platform details in a meaningful way. Hopefully my schedule will open up this afternoon to give me time to check it out before I head out on vacation!
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The benefits of virtualization in the datacenter are becoming well-known: Server consolidation, capabilities to deploy more applications and virtual machines on a single server, cost savings, power savings. Do these benefits encompass open source virtualization as well? Are there additional benefits of open source virtualization that would justify a serious evaluation against current solutions on the market today? Join Ziff Davis Enterprises for this panel on pairing server virtualization and open source technologies to learn more about how datacenter IT managers can achieve lower TCO, gain flexibility in a mixed-source environment, and increase data center efficiencies. The panel includes an analyst’s overview on open source alternatives for virtualization, a case study by an integrator on implementation, and explores:
Featured Speakers: |
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
Linux continues to evolve adding specialized purpose function into a general purpose OS
The great thing about Linux is that it’s a general purpose operating system that can be molded into a platform for anything from mobile devices, to printer embedded OS functionality to supercomputer and mainframes. Linux can also bring in certain features that may not apply to everyone but which cater to users with very specific needs. Like it or not as a mainstream security feature, SELinux has come quite far as evidenced in the latest RHEL5. SELinux also caters well to specific users with high security requirements. For those users, SELinux is probably easier to use than their other options and it is tailored to the needs they have.
Linux is now heading into another direction focusing on the specific needs for users with very low latency and determinism requirements. This can apply to anything from weapons systems for military applications, to Wall Street customers sell side trading systems, and even to SMS messaging in the telecommunications industry.
And so we’re beginning to see great strides shaping Linux for the needs of these user segments that demand low latency and determinism in both their operating system and applications. Platforms like IBM’s WebSphere Real Time and even Sun’s real time Java are currently running (or in Sun’s case, being ported to run) on a real time Linux operating system. With a real time Java machine, suddenly Java applications can inherit the benefits of a real time system. And so antiquated real time languages are suddenly… antiquated officially because a real time Linux and Java solution can marry a general purpose OS with a general purpose programming language for the best of both worlds. IBM has made great gains in the technology adding both a real time Java garbage collector and Ahead-of-Time compilation to make this a great solution compelling enough for the US Navy’s mission critical weapons systems.
Recently Novell has announced their SLERT product updates with great monitoring tools from Concurrent bundled in (and tighter integration of the kernel community real time patches – now a community standard?). I expect we’ll also soon hear more about Red Hat’s real time plans as well so stay tuned…
Friday, November 30th, 2007
Red Hat wows the CIO office: another #1 ranking in this year’s poll
Mr. Vaughan-Nichols has the coverage of the latest CIO Insight poll here. I think other vendors in the industry in Redmond and Santa Clara (heck, some perhaps in Armonk and Redwood Shores) will have to re-evaluate whether their products are delivering the same consistent business value, reliability and quality. In some respects it’s “easier” for Red Hat as they’re a one-product company and it’s in some sense easier to over-deliver when you’re focused on one product (yes, they have a couple products, but let’s be realistic, the revenue is all Linux). Regardless, this is a great story for Red Hat and hope to see them at the top of the list again next year.
For the fifth year, CIO Insight polled IT executives on how well their major vendors deliver business value, reliability and quality. This year’s winner? The No. 1 vendor? None other than Linux distributor Red Hat.
Perhaps even more impressive than Red Hat beating such name brand companies as Google and Hewlett-Packard was that Red Hat also earned a remarkable 97 percent loyalty rating.
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
Two interesting datapoints on the PC / desktop; and if you’re buying a new desktop/laptop, buy one with Linux or at least buy a Mac
I noticed a couple items hit my radar this morning.
First, ZDNet’s David Meyer outlined 10 things holding back technology. I happen to agree wholeheartedly with his first item:
1. Microsoft’s stranglehold on the desktop
Windows unified the personal-computer market, and led it into the enterprise. A good thing, surely? Yes — if unity is more important than innovation, flexibility and a free market. The European Commission disagreed with that, as have courts around the world.For most people, computing means Windows, not because they choose it but because the company’s immense power in retail and business channels, together with the inertia that comes through decades of market dominance, make it a default that’s hard to change.
So why does this hold back innovation? The European Commission ruled that computer users are unnecessarily used to products like Windows Media Player — applications that are mediocre just because Microsoft has no real incentive to make them better. Monopolies are anti-competitive and therefore anti-innovation. Just look at Internet Explorer’s long stagnation.
Microsoft’s stifling influence on new ways of thinking goes beyond applications, however. As Vista so readily proves, rehashing the same idea again and again does not make for progress. For everyone’s sake, especially Microsoft itself, the company needs to learn to compete fairly again.
It would be great to see this stranglehold loosened and allow new innovators to enter the market.
The other item of interest I read was over at CNet who listed the Top 10 terrible tech products. Windows Vista made a strong showing at #10 (somehow they overlooked Windows Me):
Windows Vista
Any operating system that provokes a campaign for its predecessor’s reintroduction deserves to be classed as terrible technology. Any operating system that quietly has a downgrade-to- previous-edition option introduced for PC makers deserves to be classed as terrible technology. Any operating system that takes six years of development but is instantly hated by hordes of PC professionals and enthusiasts deserves to be classed as terrible technology.Windows Vista conforms to all of the above. Its incompatibility with hardware, its obsessive requirement of human interaction to clear security dialogue box warnings and its abusive use of hated DRM, not to mention its general pointlessness as an upgrade, are just some examples of why this expensive operating system earns the final place in our terrible tech list.
So we’re stuck in a market that lacks innovation, forces over-reliance on a single vendor and leads to poor products that do not meet the needs of the customers. And yet, the poor product still maintains a dominant market share and can charge a premium. This is a monopoly the industry must break free from in order to innovate and deliver unique value to users. Unlike some, I don’t see the market shifting to a cellular/non-PC world anytime soon. There will be some shift, but the shift will take years, and may never fully replace the laptop/desktop.
Is 2008 the year to shake up the desktop market? I think so. I must admit, even if the market shifts to Apple Mac OS I’d be fine with that. We need some change in the market and if Mac meets the needs of consumers (and I think it does), let’s at least promote choice. I happen to like Ubuntu myself (as does my wife who doesn’t know she’s using Ubuntu).
Finally, I just love this Apple ad:
Monday, November 26th, 2007
The Register: “Linux desktops grow and grow and grow”
URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/23/linux_desktop_survey/
Initial figures from the 2007 Linux Foundation Desktop survey are coming out. In this article, two items caught my eye:
1) SMB
The majority, 68.4 per cent, of Linux desktops are in small and home office set-ups or small businesses with less than 100 machines. Medium businesses of between 101 and 500 PCs account for 9.7 per cent and companies with between 1,001 and 5,000 account for 6.2 per cent of Linux desktops.
2) Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu
In terms of flavours of Linux the “Ubuntu family” accounts for 54.1 per cent followed by Red Hat versions with 50.2 per cent, while Novell SUSE picks up 35.2 per cent. (Eagle-eyed readers may notice this adds up to more than 100 per cent because many groups have not settled on just one Linux version in their office or organisation.)
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
Eclipse users are driven by…. surprise, surprise… Economics
URL: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2213907,00.asp
I tend to bring up economics in conversations about Linux and open source. I completed my undergraduate work in Economics so the bridge between the two topics comes rather easy. Economics is a key driving force behind what makes “open source” (software) fundamentally “work”. The “invisible hand” makes course corrections and drives investment from multiple parties, each investing for their own gain. Many point to open source as some weird form of technical socialism, and to some extent perhaps the community aspect and personalities lend help to that portrayal. However, at the root of open source I see free market capitalism. Someday, if I ever have the time, I’d love to write a paper (or blog) about the economic principles that we can see playing out in the open source software and Linux ecosystem. If you know of an economist who has written on the subject, I’d love any pointers to their research.
The survey, conducted by The Eclipse Foundation and market research firm IDC, found that 75 percent of the IT solution providers polled said they are using Eclipse for economic reasons—either to make money or to save money. Of the organizations using Eclipse to make money, 47 percent said they are making at least 50 percent of their revenue from Eclipse-based products.
Thursday, November 1st, 2007
Nigeria paying for Mandriva, but still going to install Windows on Classmate PCs
A real shame, just a shame. There are some business practices that I certainly could never support – see my lost post for a different approach:
http://blog.mandriva.com/2007/10/31/an-open-letter-to-steve-ballmer/
And finally, congratulations to Mandriva who effectively presented a Linux client based solution that met Nigeria’s needs and would have created a new generation of Linux users for the world to leverage. It’s a step backwards, but at the same time, a step forward knowing you can successfully win these deals in a fair competition.
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
ComputerWorld: “Novell’s Linux business climbs since its deal with Microsoft”
“The affect on sales year over year, for Novell’s first three quarters of our fiscal year, which ends Oct. 31 — our Linux business was up 243%,” said Justin Steinman, director of marketing at Novell, who, along with executives from both companies, spoke at a program hosted by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.
Oddly this comes out just the day after Red Hat’s earnings which seem to have impressed investors:
Shares of Red Hat Inc. rose more than 4% Wednesday, one day after the company reported that its second-quarter profit rose 59%, and sales slightly beat Wall Street analysts’
The bottom line conclusion I see in these datapoints is Linux is flying off the shelves (or is that off the wires with downloads…) and growing quite well no matter what other companies try to do to impede its growth. The state of Linux is strong.
Monday, September 24th, 2007
EU Globalization Institute: “Unbundling Windows”
I haven’t had time to read the full report yet, but if the report is as good as the abstract, I like what I see.
Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission. It says that the bundling of Microsoft Windows with computers is not in the public interest, and prevents meaningful competition in the operating system market.
The submission comes after the Commission won a ruling supporting its existing antitrust action against Microsoft in the European Court of First Instance. The Institute argues that cheaper competitors are unable to benefit from their lower cost because consumers have already been forced to buy Windows. Windows’ dominant position both has slowed technical improvements and prevented new alternatives entering from the marketplace.
Operating systems, it says, are not a natural monopoly, requiring just one supplier. Instead, in a competitive market, there would be a broad compatibility between different supplier’s products. “Competition would encourage open standards and interoperability as vendors would, for competitive reasons, want their products to interact with other vendors’ products,” the submission says.
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
ComputerWorld: “SCO says there is ‘substantial doubt’ it will survive”
“As a result of both the court’s August 10, 2007 ruling and the company’s entry into Chapter 11, there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a growing concern,” SCO said in the filing.
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
IBM breaks open the Office lock on customers, offers a path to and open standard with new, no charge Lotus Symphony
Lots of news since I left for Europe. The trip was amazing (photos and maybe videos coming soon). But since I left, OOXML failed in ISO, the EU rejected Microsoft’s appeal, SCO filed for Chapter 11, and IBM joined OpenOffice.org as a significant contributor (35 developers).
Today, though, IBM also announced Lotus Symphony – a no charge set of office productivity editors (you may be familiar with Microsoft Office’s Excel, Powerpoint, and Word – they’re very similar). IBM’s Symphony suite, like OpenOffice allows users to also start transitioning to OpenDocument Format (ODF). The new suite is NO CHARGE (yes, the nice way of saying “free” without implying “cheap” or “dumbed down”). These are the real deal, the same editors that come bundled with Lotus Notes 8 and the work on Linux or Windows (although I prefer Linux). The URL to download them is here:
www.ibm.com/software/lotus/symphony
The interesting thing now is that Microsoft Office costs what… $X00 and you can get the IBM Symphony suite for $0. Symphony handles Word, ODF, and many other formats (including PDF output)… Microsoft Office… well… not so much. Symphony is even cheaper than StarOffice (unless you go through GooglePack)
Take Symphony for a test run – there’s no charge – and keep an eye out because I can absolutely feel OpenOffice and by proxy Symphony are going to see great advances in their evolution going forward.
A nice quote from Steve Mills with a relation back to Linux:
“IBM is committed to opening office desktop productivity applications just as we helped open enterprise computing with Linux,” said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software Group. “The lifeblood of any organization is contained in thousands of documents. With the Open Document Format, businesses can unlock their information, making it universally accessible on any platform and on the Web in highly flexible ways.”
Friday, August 24th, 2007
SUNW == JAVA, yes, it’s true.
So I guess Sun really did change it’s ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA… personally given how much they’ve been touting open source software, communities, etc. I would have personally chosen something different (“OPEN” was my suggestion to a few yesterday). Considering Sun’s growth in Linux according to the analyst firms, perhaps “LNUX” could have been a better choice ;-)
JAVA… hmmm… what does the word JAVA convey these days? I’m not sure I’d pick JAVA… but then again, I’m not the CEO of a public company.
Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
Scoble Interviews IBM’s top IP lawyer, Dave Kappos – a “must watch” if you’re into open standards, open source and IP
I’m admittedly not much of a “Scoble-fan”, but this is an outstanding interview with IBM’s Dave Kappos (IBM’s top intellectual property lawyer). About 12 minutes in is a discussion on the stresses collaborative innovation introduces on the 20th century IP model we have today. The entire video is absolutely worth watching or listening to. I will say that Dave is one of the great lawyers in the legal community that really *get it* when it comes to open standards, open source software and IP.
http://www.podtech.net/home/3844/a-hour-with-ibms-top-intellectual-property-lawyer
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
The Register: “IBM embraces – wtf – Sun’s Solaris across x86 server line”
Guess even IBM can surprise people at times. A lot of people at Sun and IBM put a lot of hard work into this and should be commended for what was not a clear path at times ;-)
As expected a number of people have overplayed the significance (flame wars abound I’m sure), but once the dust settles, things should be clearer. And also remember, this support is not entirely “new” (check out the date).
I’ll link to El Reg simply because Ashlee as usual made me laugh:
http://www.theregister.com/2007/08/16/sun_ibm_solarisx86/
Oh, and one last thing: Solaris is a binary operating system that comes with a commercial license so please remember that when some people misinterpret Solaris to be some open source activity.
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Sun, IBM and My Little Pony
I don’t know where The Register gets its insanely creative ideas from but this one was funny – where do they find these crazy YouTube videos? More to come on clearing the speculation today…
IBM has a half-assed, similar deal in place today where it will let Sun support Solaris x86 running on IBM’s blades. Perhaps Schwartz played this video for IBM’s brass and convinced them to adopt the HP way.
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Citrix will acquire XenSource
Rumors had been floating for some time so this acquisition is not much of a surprise. Congrats to the XenSource management team for a well played strategy – $500M can go a long way! (unless your first name is Larry and last name Ellison)
Having thought about how these open source software companies that have done well, it seems many of them either 1) are cool so Google buys them, or 2) they use open source integration with Linux or other platforms to essentially become a control point. Are companies really trying to acquire the software or the controls points? In light of this move the paravirt-ops interface by the Linux kernel team was brilliant ;-)
It will be interesting to see how this plays out – XenSource is not an extremely simple fit for Citrix …
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2171251,00.asp?kc=HOTTOPICS081507STR1
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