This press release from IDC caught my eye. They published a report yesterday demonstrating the rising importance of open source among business end users, and listed the main challenges they face. In particular:

Respondents believe the biggest challenge vendors face in delivering open source-related services is integrating open source and proprietary software components.

Late last year, the OSA published its customer forum series summary report, which highlighted the same issue. As commercial open source becomes more mainstream, issues like interoperability come to the forefront. The OSA has been on the leading edge of identifying and resolving these issues, while other popular thought leaders and bloggers were asserting they didn't exist. So, it's good to see mainstream analysts and media starting to pick up on the same issues, reinforce the message, and remove the confusion around this.

The good news is these are easily solvable issues, it's just a matter of helping companies work together to solve them. OSA members have been doing this all along, delivering more turnkey, interoperable solutions. JasperSoft/Hyperic, Ingres/JasperSoft, and, of course, our own Common Customer View are great examples that can be easily replicated by other vendors in the industry. Now is not too late to join us and participate in our next round of interoperability initiatives!

OK, time to wave the white flag... I'm a former developer, and while it's been over six years since I've written a line a code, I couldn't resist spending an unhealthy amount of time today wading through the 30,000 new pages of APIs and interoperability documentation on the MSDN site.

In particular, I'm looking for solutions to our "Top 5" hitlist of interoperability challenges, as measured by customer feedback during last fall's customer forum series. My fading developer skills must be failing me, or call me an old fogey, because I'm simply not finding what I'm looking for. Rest assured I'm not trying to express skepticism in a back-handed way - Judging from the announcements and resulting coverage, I really believe this is there - or soon will be there. Perhaps it's staring me in the face, but am just not recognizing it. So, a little help, please? If you find it, please reply to this blog or email me directly!

Continue reading "Our Top 5 Microsoft Interop Issues: A Little Help, Please?"

Once again Microsoft is in the news - This time with a significant announcement regarding interoperability. The media response has been tremendous, and reactions from the open source community have been as varied as ever, ranging from giddy enthusiasm that this is a "major turnaround" to skepticism that this means anything or nothing more than tactical self-interest.

This blogger is taking the view of cautious optimism. While it doesn't represent a fundamental change in business for Microsoft, we see it as a pragmatic reaction to customer demand, and nonetheless resulting in a significant net positive for the industry.

Continue reading "Microsoft's Interop Announcement: A Practical Response to Market Reality"

A day has passed since the end of this year's Olliance Think Tank in Napa, California, and I've had a chance to reflect (and recover).










This is a unique event on the open source calendar, well-attended by numerous entrepreneurs, executives, industry experts and thought leaders in commercial open source. Key trends and issues facing the industry were discussed, plus ample opportunity for offline networking. Not to mention the all-important choice of venue (Napa Valley is the capital of the USA's wine industry) and numerous opportunities to partake in the local product, which helped dull the edges of the many Type A personalities in attendance!

There were several takeaways from this event, with the most significant being that it's no longer a matter of whether open source will succeed, but how. The was a pervasive sense of optimism and excitement at this event, permeating every presentation and offline conversation.
Continue reading "Olliance Think Tank 2008 - OSS Comes of Age"

Greetings from SolutionsLinux in Paris, France. It is now 2:30am in my local timezone - Such are the joys of "Going Global"!

The OSA has had a great first year, attracting significant membership and driving several important interoperability projects. With many of our early members being USA-based, many of our activities have been in the USA. As we continue to grow, we have recognized the need for driving more activity around the world, and we have given careful thought to how to do this in a scalable way. How can we think globally, while ensuring greater activity on a local basis? How can we better serve member companies, no matter where in the world they happen to be based?

Time differences just scratch the surface of the challenges of global coordination. Open solutions are truly a global phenomenon, with adoption increasing in most regions of the world. However those adoption patterns differ. The European public sector, for example, has been driving adoption to a greater degree than in the USA, which has been mostly private sector led. Differences in culture and business practices also affect where and how commercial open source products are adopted. This all adds up to a need for local spins on our message and methods, and a need for local people to drive activities and their relative priorities.

Early feedback from many European companies has been positive, with several prospective members indicating they would join a local chapter that would serve as a regional focal point for collective action.

We have heard the same from similar companies in Japan and other parts of the world. Indeed, by this time next year, we expect a large and vibrant European chapter, as well as new chapters in Japan and possibly other parts of Asia, and Latin America.

2008 will be a turning point year for open source solutions, with clear separation between winners and losers, as we have recently written. Many companies will figure out that "go-it-alone open source" won't be their path to success. Our goal is for the OSA to be there for them, no matter where in the world they happen to be. Vibrant chapters in key markets will be the way we make that happen.

By the way, if you're at SolutionsLinux, please stop by our session track on Tuesday afternoon!

A funny thing happened on the way to the office

I hopped on a plane in New York this morning and planned on writing a blog about new year's resolutions. Resolution one is to "Stop Procrastinating" which might explain why that particular blog is three weeks behind schedule. When I landed in SFO, my blackberry almost melted under the strain of all the email traffic around the MySQL and BEA acquisitions.


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Yes, that's "billion", with a 'B'! I'm sure the valuation negotiations considered the media impact and attention of a nice round number. They succeeded. Already the punditocracy is a-twitter, with lots of ink being spilt and keyboards being worn out about how this should prove (once and for all) that open source business models are viable or even superior to other ways of running a software company.

This industry observer begs to differ. MySQL didn't succeed just because it was an open source business. They succeeded because they mastered how to deliver customer value, and brilliantly executed a strategy that is tried-and-true in the software business: brand, platform, and meeting customer needs. Open source was a means to an end, not an end unto itself.

Let's look more closely at their keys to success:
Continue reading "MySQL bought for $1,000,000,000 - Open Source Validation?"

First, many thanks to our presenters, Raven Zachary of The 451 Group, and Chris MacKenzie of Black Duck, for their excellent presentations. You can view them, including mine, here.

We had a small but high-powered group, many who stayed an extra day after The 451 Group's annual client event. Discussion was incisive and wide-ranging, and shed more light on open source adoption patterns, why companies adopt, and what gets in the way...

Continue reading "Boston Customer Forum - Our 5th and Counting!"

Just came back from a highly productive week in Boston, including The 451 Group's second annual client event. Several hundred ISV's, integrators and enterprise customers participated to network, exchange ideas and hear 451 Group analysts' research and predictions in commercial open source and other segments of the software market. I had the good fortune to meet many ISVs, plus extensive time with Raven Zachary and other 451 Group analysts - In my opinion one of the most well-connected and "with-it" analysts in the industry.

My takeaway was a sobering view of the commercial open source market, with a few high-profile winners overshadowing a broad spectrum of underachievement. Fortunately, the differences between success and failure aren't insurmountable for most companies... Or, more frequently, the difference between success and an ongoing "zombie" state where companies keep hanging in there, barely earning enough to pay expenses and keep the investor community marginally interested, while opportunities continue to pass them by. If this sounds familiar, then please read on! Continue reading "The Issues with "Go It Alone" Commercial Open Source"

I haven't posted here in a while, but rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated! The OSA is going strong, with our sponsorship at GOSCON, the launch of our monthly newsletter, and two more customer forums scheduled this month.

Last week, Unisys hosted our latest customer forum near Philadelphia. We had excellent turnout, from CIOs and other IT leaders from a diverse group of companies and organizations including Vanguard (mutual funds), Sunoco (energy), Blue Cross (health insurance), Tasty Bake (consumer packaged goods), and the City of Philadelphia's Housing and Community Development.

The theme was collaboration, and how the spirit of open-ness and collaboration are transforming not just how software is delivered, but fundamentally how business is conducted and how diverse groups of people can work together to accomplish goals. This is absolutely the core philosophy and religion of the OSA, that by working together in a spirit of open-ness and collaboration, software companies can be more successful than our closed proprietary brethren. But as is the case with any religion, it's always great to see one's faith proven in practice.
Continue reading "OSA Customer Forums Going Strong"

So far, we have covered what we've accomplished in the last six months, and outlined where we are going from here. In this fifth and final segment, we'll close with a few words on OSA membership.

In short, now is a good time to join, if you haven't already. We had a productive first six months, culminating in a series of significant events this past summer, and now we have just closed on our plan for the next six months. We have a variety of projects that are just kicking off, so now is a good time to become part of our community and get in on the ground floor of these new initiatives.
Continue reading "The OSA's First Half Year, Part 5: Make a Difference Through the OSA"

As described in the previous segments, we have collectively gained good experience with interoperability and built important relationships with the end user community. We have shown that there is value in companies and organizations working together in solving these common problems, and have shown the relevance of an organization like the OSA to help guide and facilitate those activities.

So where do we go from here? Answering this question rests on what kind of organization the OSA is becoming, what we want to be "when we grow up". In the last few weeks, the membership has gone through exactly this exercise - Setting vision and goals for itself for the next six months. Below is one slide from the result of this exercise:
Continue reading "The OSA's First Half Year, Part 4: Our Next Six Months"

Much like our early decisions on interoperability, we also decided early-on that we need vibrant dialog with end users as well, and foster an end-user community to provide ongoing input regarding their priorities and concerns. This has proven to be critical for two reasons: First, to keep us focused on the most important issues, and second, to be able to work with an engaged group of business end users willing to try out our ideas and make sure they work in practice.

To this end, we launched our Customer Forum Series, a series of events in which senior IT executives are invited to hear about open source solutions and sound off on their successes and challenges. The input has been very valuable, and even more valuable are the relationships we have built and ongoing dialog that continues to be mutually beneficial for them and the OSA membership alike.

But the most exciting outreach activity is our ability to take our interoperability innovations, such as the Common Customer View and open-sourced interoperability components, directly to customers. Unisys and other integrators are doing this with the CCV, and some of the OSA's ISV members are planning this with individual components thereof. While serving to bring some revenue opportunity to the participating members (a nice payback for their investment in the OSA), more importantly, this will prove that these work in practice, in real-world settings, and not just in our own labs and demo environments. This way, we can credibly drive thought leadership throughout the whole industry based on real-world experience.

Customer input has proven to be the lifeblood of the OSA. It has kept us focused on what's most important, and also helped guide our priorities going forward, as described in our next segment...

Early on in the OSA's history, before we launched, we identified interoperability as a key barrier to enterprise adoption. End users we spoke to raised this as their number one issue. Open source's greatest asset - the ability to tap into the innovative talents of organizations and individuals worldwide - can also be an end customer's greatest frustration - "How do I get all of this to work together"? This included a broad array of issues, both technical and non-technical (support, project management, and so forth).

Commercial open source vendors can address this within the scope of their respective point solutions, but can't individually address the many issues encountered in the typical enterprise nearly as well as our larger, consolidated proprietary competitors. Moreover, we should view this as a competitive threat, as Dana Blankenhorn recently expressed.

However, this apparent weakness can also be a strength: Interoperability is, more than anything, a collective problem, and collective action is the best way to address it. And what better model for collective action than open source, applied to the universe of business solutions? This was the founding premise of the OSA. Through collective action, we can accomplish more than we could accomplish independently.
Continue reading "The OSA's First Half Year, Part 2: The Interoperability Challenge"