Quick Update from OSBC, Press Release

I'm taking a lunch break from OSBC at the Argent Hotel in downtown San Francisco, CA. I have the luxury of working from an office only one block from the venue (The 451 Group SF office).

Matt Asay opened the conference with a clip from Monty Python and Holy Grail, comparing the threat of open source to proprietary vendors to the killer white rabbit.

This morning, Jonathan Schwartz from Sun had some salient points from his keynote...

Technology companies that don't understand citizen technology are like media companies that don't understand citizen media and communities are about individuals. The media analogy is a good one, esp. in the context of podcasts and video blogs. While the comment about communities not being individuals may seem like an obvious one, this is often overlooked as we focus on personalities. Schwartz also said the most successful businesses on earth understand communities and the value of 'free' and decisions in the marketplace are being made by the bottom of the pyramid. How true! He also alluded to the use of an emperor penguin as the new openSolaris mascot - we'll see if this was more than a wise crack. The big news from Sun today was the OpenSPARC chip based on the GPL license. They even had a supporting quote from Richard Stallman, which Schwartz claimed was "hell freezing over." Will this be more than hype? Fabs are expensive and out of reach for the individual or small groups, while I can easily download and modify open source code on my laptop. What's next? Open source (x) (y) (z).

In addition, The 451 Group has issued a press release regarding the o*rev acquisition and bringing Lee Bruno, former Red Herring senior editor, on board. I spent time with Lee in NYC last week and am very excited to work with him. A smart, humble guy, and he's a Mac user.

The 451 Group Taps Technology Industry Veterans to Lead Growth and Expansion of Key Innovation-Focused Service Lines

Wow, am I a veteran already?!