Friday, February 17, 2006

OSBC West 2006 Photos

I have just uploaded my OSBC West 2006 photos to Flickr. Most of the photos were taken at The 451 Group Open Source | Open House reception following the conference.

There is also a tag on Flickr for additional OSBC West 2006 photos.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Pulling the rug out from under my own feet

I've been lucky with the press so far - no major misquotes. As the author of articles for monthly publications, I have the time to check quotes with my interviewees prior to publication. Unfortunately, for a web publication with daily deadlines, this is not practical. Hence, I have been misquoted.

I'd like to clarify the misquote.

First of all, I want to tell you that I think the world of Charlie Babcock at Information Week. I respect his writing, and he was an early believer in the open source work I was doing at La Quinta Inns. He covered this in the article, "Open Source, Part 2" back in early 2004. This article led to an invitation to speak at the Information Week Spring 2004 Conference, which opened all sorts of doors for me down the road. We all have people in our lives whose actions propel us. Charlie is one of those people to me.

Charlie published a piece yesterday entitled "Sleepycat CEO Says Oracle Needs To Learn About Open Source Communities". In this article, I am quoted as saying: "Now MySQL has had that rug pulled out from under them" regarding Oracle's acquisiton of Sleepycat. Let me explain the full context of this quote.

Charlie and I were talking at the end of the first day of OSBC. This was the same day that Oracle announced its acquisition of Sleepycat. Charlie wanted to place this acquisition in context and I gave him my perpsective on recent events concerning the open source database space. Charlie was taking notes while I was talking, but I was less prepared to be quoted.

I was told months ago (a rumor, although from a source I trust) that after the Oracle acquisition of Innobase, MySQL was in negotiations with Sleepycat to migrate their Pro Certified Server database engine from InnoDB to Berekeley DB. If this rumor was indeed true, then the rug would have been pulled out from under MySQL's feet a second time.

I thought it was important to put this quote in context. The first half of the statement is missing and it was concerning a hypothetical situation.

Understanding the Financial Benefits of Open Source

My focus late last year was the creation of a report for IT managers tasked with justifying an open source intiative financially. I wanted to provide a simple, easy-to-use, guide with an associated calculator. The outcome was a 30+ page report entitled, "Understanding the Financial Benefits of Open Source". JBoss licensed the work for distribution and I am pleased to announce that this report is now available for download on The JBoss Executive Resource Center (registration required).

Let me make it clear that I had full editorial control over this report. The content is my own. JBoss has licensed it for distribution, as they believe it will help to educate their prospective customers on the financial justification process.

The premise of the report is that you may be able to save money on your open source initiaitive (or you may not). Each project, each organization, each initiative is unique, and no vendor or consulting firm can make that determination for you without first understanding the unique aspects of your business.

I hope you will send me your feedback on this report. My intention is to update the document over the next few months as IT end users (and ISVs) use this material and help perfect the model. I need your feedback to back this report better.

The Open Source Update #40

Compiled by Raven Zachary for Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ)

EDITOR'S NOTE

After compiling 40 issues of The Open Source Update for Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ), I am stepping down from this role. I have joined The 451 Group, a technology industry analyst company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation. In this new role as Senior Analyst and the Open Source Practice Head, I will be responsible for The 451 Group's ongoing coverage of open source and the creation of a new open source adoption research service, called CAOS (Commercial Adoption of Open Source).

This newsletter will continue, under the direction of TCI Publishing, the publishers of Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ). As an EOSJ subscriber, you will continue to receive this newsletter on a regular basis.

To further focus on my new role at The 451 Group, I have also resigned my duties as Senior Technical Editor for Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ), but will remain on in an advisory capacity. The team at TCI Publishing is doing a fantastic job with the magazine, and I look forward working with them in this new role.

Take care, and thank you for your continued support. It has been a pleasure to serve you.

Raven Zachary
raven@eosj.com

THIS WEEK'S TOP NEWS

ORACLE ACQUIRES OPEN SOURCE DATABASE COMPANY. Oracle acquires Sleepycat, an open source embedded database company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but estimates suggest it was worth close to $60 million US.

MYSQL OBTAINS $18.5 MILLION US FUNDING ROUND. MySQL, an open source database company, obtains $18.5 million US in its Series C investment round from Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Intel Capital, Red Hat, SAP Ventures, and Presidio STX.

ALFRESCO OBTAINS $8 MILLION US FOUNDING ROUND. Alfresco, an open source document management company, obtains $8 million US in its Series B investment round from Mayfield and Accel.

COLLAX OBTAINS ADDITIONAL FUNDING. Collax, a small business Linux company, obtains additional Series A funding from Intel Capital, bringing the total for this round to $8.4 million US. Previous Series A investors include Atlas Venture Partners and Wellington Partners.

ICS ACQUIRES PROJECT.NET, PLANS TO RELEASE AS OPEN SOURCE. Integrated Computer Solutions (ICS), a software development tools company, announces the acquisition of Project.net, a web-based enterprise project management application. ICS intends to release Project.net as open source within the next few months.

PERSPECTIVES
A collection of open source editorials, opinions, and blog entries from around the world.

BEA found JBoss acquisition too expensive
Stephen Shankland

OSBC West Redux
Zack Urlocker

All open source is doomed (yadda yadda yadda)
Dana Blankenhorn

Oracle's 'All You Can Eat' Software
Stephanie Stahl

Survey Shows Linux Is the Better Server Choice
Steven Vaughan-Nichols

Fixing Patents, Open-Source Style
Bryan Sims

Absolutely no truth to the rumour...
Mark Shuttleworth

Musing on Margin Migration
Bernard Golden

OSBC Day 1 Notes
Stephen O'Grady

OSBC Town Hall Meeting
Raven Zachary

ANNOUNCEMENTS
News, press releases, and announcements from open source vendors, organizations, and projects. Submit your news to update@eosj.com.

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

Alfresco
Alfresco receives $8 million in VC backing

Black Duck Software
Black Duck Launches New Program for Enhanced Due Diligence; Improves Technology Assessments in Software M&A and Financing

EnterpriseDB
EnterpriseDB Releases Advanced Server 8.1

Fusion Technololgies
Fusion Technologies to Announce Branded Service Offerings at the Open Source Business Conference

Freescale
Freescale Simplifies Embedded Interface Design with Open Source Tool Suite

GroundWork
GroundWork Unveils Open Source and Professional Editions of GroundWork Monitor

HP
HP Simplifies Open Source License Process with Novell

IBM
Tech Titans Contribute Browser-Boosting Ajax Technologies to Open Source Community

ICS
ICS Acquires Project.net, Launches First Commercial Open Source Initiative for Project Management

IEEE
NetBSD Operating System to Add Elements of the POSIX Standard

Intalio
Intalio Brings Web 2.0 to BPM

JasperSoft
JasperSoft Announces One Million Downloads of JasperReports Open Source Reporting Solution

Krugle
Krugle rolls out source code search engine to software developers at Evans Data Developer Relations Conference

Mayfield Fund
Mayfield Fund Expands into Growth Markets with Fund XII Investments; Sectors Include Open Source, Consumer Internet, and China

MySQL
MySQL AB Secures $18.5 Million in Series C Funding

Neterion
Industry Leaders to Jointly Develop RDMA over Ethernet Open Source Software for Linux Applications

Net Integration Technologies
Net Integration Technologies Launches New Offering Designed for Small and Medium Businesses

Novell
Novell Raises the Bar for the Linux Desktop

ODBMS
Progress and GemStone join ODBMS.ORG as Sponsors

OpenMFG
OpenMFG Community Powers Fourth Major Upgrade

Oracle
Oracle Buys Open Source Software Company Sleepycat

Palamida
Palamida CEO, Legal Experts Address Software License Integrity at OSBC West

Progress Software
Progress Software Announces Availability of OpenEdge 10.1 Platform for Developing SOA Business Applications

Qlusters
Qlusters Expands Executive Team

Red Hat
Red Hat Makes Strides in Platform Security

rPath
rPath Launches rBuilder platform for enabling Software as a Service for On-Premise Applications

Scalix
Linux Email Leader Scalix Launches Scalix 10 With Advanced Enterprise Functionality

Specifix
Former Red Hat VP James Prasad Hooks up with 'Open Source DNA' Company Specifix

SourceLabs
SourceLabs Extends SASH Stack for Java to Support Oracle Fusion Middleware

SpikeSource
SugarCRM to Resell SpikeSource Spike Net

Storage Revolution
StorageRevolution.com Sets Sail; Open Source Initiative Takes a New Tack on an Old Problem: The Management of Data and Storage

SugarCRM
Microsoft and SugarCRM Announce Technical Collaboration

Sun
Sun Microsystems Opens Door for Open Sourcing SPARC Technology - Raises the Temperature on Competition with "Coolest" Chip in Town

Turbolinux
Turbolinux to Open an Affiliate in India

Trolltech
Trolltech's Qtopia Strengthens Design and Flexibility of Latest Linux-based Mobile Phones

Virtuas
Virtuas President and Founder to Offer Insight at OSBC West

Voltaire
Voltaire Releases Industry's First Commercial InfiniBand Linux Stack Based on OpenIB

XenSource
XenSource Names Peter Levine President and CEO

UPCOMING EVENTS

LinuxWorld Conference & Expo
Boston, MA, USA
April 3-6, 2006

MySQL Users Conference 2006
Santa Clara, CA, USA
April 24-27, 2006

EclipseCon 2006
Santa Clara, CA, USA
March 20-23, 2006

JBoss World 2006
Las Vegas, NV, USA
June 12-15, 2006

Red Hat Summit 2006
Nashville, TN, USA
May 30 - June 2, 2006

Open Source Users Conference (OSUC)

Hey...

If anyone wants to go start an open source users conference (and one is definitely needed), you can go buy the domain osuc.com for $3,925. Although, with an acronym like that, it may be worth passing up.

Seriously...

We do need an open source users conference. This was my fourth OSBC, and like the previous conferences, the only end-users I met were either brought by vendors or spoke on panels. OSBC tried this year, even offering free iPod Nanos for registrants (use company money, get free personal MP3 player), but as much as I love OSBC for networking opportunities within the industry, for whatever reason, it does not appeal to end users.

If you look at the predominant "bottom-up" adoption trend of open source technology, then an event like OSCON serves the adopters. The problem is, OSCON attendees don't often have purchasing authority or P&L responsibility. These are coders, sys admins, and IT architects, for the most part. And in the same vein as OBSC, I really enjoy OSCON, too. Both of these conferences offered value to me as a) an IT end user b) a journalist and now c) an analyst.

Maybe the end users (those with purchasing authority) don't want to go to conferences focused exclusively on the topic of open source. I spoke with two vendors at OSBC who were disappointed that they didn't meet enough end users, but they also both admitted that it was worth coming. They'll be coming next year as attendees, not paying sponsors.

A little birdie told me...

22 February 2006 - Oracle announces acquisition of JBoss for $430 million US. The deal closed earlier this week, I am told, and that the timing of the public announcement is to upstage BEA's quarterly earnings call. If you take a look at Stephen Shankland's piece, "BEA found JBoss acquisition too expensive", then you can understand why Oracle may have an axe to grind with BEA right now.

I've been asked by several people whether I think JBoss is worth $430 million US. All that matters is whether it's worth it to Oracle, and we'll find out next week. My initial estimates were closer to $350 million. If Marc can get close to half a billion dollars from Oracle, then good for him!

The real question is whether the Oracle acquisition will drive JBoss users to Geronimo. Oracle needs to approach this situation delicately.

The Vultures

I was catching up with Bob Bickel, VP of Strategy for JBoss at OSBC on Tuesday night. I didn't even bother asking him about the Oracle rumors - there are plenty of sources to troll for that information, and Bob isn't one of them. While we were talking, Gavin Clarke, freelance journalist from the Register and Charlie Babcock from InformationWeek, start walking towards Bob from either side, with clear intentions in mind.

Bob looks right at me and says - "Raven, save me from these vultures."

Vultures? Nah. Although, even Bob was joking. Gavin and Charlie are both excellent writers. Poor Bob was assaulted by Oracle questions during the entire conference, I'm sure.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

OSBC Town Hall Meeting

Rachel Chalmers, a fellow analyst at The 451 Group, did an excellent job at moderating this evening's OSBC Town Hall Meeting (and I'm not just saying this because I have the pleasure of working with her now - she is a class act.)

Some of my favorite quotes from the meeting...

Regarding the possibility that Oracle has purchased both Innobase and Sleepycat as a move against MySQL, Marten Mickos said: "It's like killing a dolphin by drinking the ocean."

Tim O'Reilly on open source licensing: "I've always believed that the GPL will wither away."

Much of the discussion was focused around the future of computing services, with both Tim O'Reilly and Nick Carr agreeing that at some point in the future (possibly as soon as 10-20 years) there will essentially be one computer (at which point Rachel posed the question whether we will call it HAL or Sir) and that those that control the data, will be in control of the services.

Tim O'Reilly recommended that instead of spending money on acquiring open source startups, Oracle should be buying databases of information.

Interesting stuff!

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?!

Sunday, February 12, 2006

The 451 Group has acquired OREV, LLC.



For the past year or so, I have been focused on advising enterprise IT and software vendors on open source strategy through my consulting firm, o*rev. My work as o*rev, along with editorial duties for Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ), freelance writing for various publications, and conference speaking and panel moderation opportunities, have made up the core of my involvement with open source recently.

Today, I am pleased to announce that my consulting firm, o*rev, has been acquired by The 451 Group - a privately held, New York-based technology industry analyst company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation. This is an important development, which validates much of the work I have done and which will provide an opportunity for me to expand the scope and impact of open source adoption.

My research work (including my recent report on the financial benefits of open source) and many of the services previously provided by o*rev will be integrated into a new Open Source Practice within The 451 Group. I have been appointed as the Open Source Practice Head for The 451 Group, joining an already-strong 451 open source team, including Senior Analyst Rachel Chalmers, along with Chief Analyst John Abbott, Research Director Chris Noble and Enterprise Software Analyst Martin Schneider. The 451 Open Source Practice will focus the company's analytical activities around enterprise adoption of open source software.

The 451 Group also will soon launch its 451 Commercial Adoption of Open Source (CAOS) Research Service. This service will analyze the challenges and opportunities as commercial enterprise 'early adopters' introduce open source software into their core IT operations, and it will examine the effectiveness of the strategies, business models and support/development programs of vendor companies which are deploying an open source approach in delivering software to their enterprise customers. The 451 CAOS Research Service will serve as the focal point of much of my individual activities, and I plan to be in touch with many of you on this service over the coming months. So stay tuned for more on this.

Why have I taken this step?

Well - quite simply - I am impressed by the leadership and direction of The 451 Group within the enterprise IT industry, and particularly its innovation-focused agenda. I am also excited by the resources that The 451 Group is investing to develop its analytical practice around the open source business community.

I will be leading the company's efforts, but that is not to say that The 451 Group does not already have an impressive record analyzing the commercial adoption of open source software:

* 451 analysts have produced more than 1,000 reports over the past five years - available through the company's core services, including the 451 Market Insight Service and 451 TechDealmaker - that have analyzed open source technology providers, their business models and their competitive positioning at various levels.

* In October of 2005, The 451 Group held its 451 Industry Summit on the Commercial Adoption of Open Source at which attendees included executives from leading IT vendor companies (including IBM, Sun Microsystems and Novell), leading open source software firms (including CollabNet, JBoss and SugarCRM), under-the-radar startups, venture capitalists, investment bankers and early-adopter end users.

* This past December, it released the 451 Special Report, "Cashing in on Open Source," which was principally authored by my new colleagues Rachel Chalmers and Chris Noble, along with Martin Schneider, which many in the community have been talking about.

* Within the next few weeks, The 451 Group will be launching its Software Business Transformation Summit, which will be an annual, executive summit for key members of the community to examine the changing model, and underlying economics, for enterprise software - where I hope to see many of you this coming June.

Simply put, what does all of this mean?

* I'm an industry analyst now, and my efforts will be focused around providing timely, relevant, and insightful coverage of trends and events in the open source industry and the open source community. I will primarily be interacting with you as an open source analyst.

* I will remain based in Dallas, Texas, and will be visiting our New York and San Francisco offices on a regular basis.

* I have resigned my duties as Senior Technical Editor for Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ), but will remain on in an advisory capacity.

* My final issue of the Open Source Update newsletter will correspond with OSBC West this week. I am in the process of training someone at TCI, the publishers of Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ), to continue the newsletter, but the content and frequency may change. If you are a current subscriber to the newsletter, please stay tuned for more information.

I invite you to learn more about The 451 Group by visiting our web site - www.the451group.com.

If you represent a company, organization, or open source project team, please add me to your PR/AR/Briefing mailing lists.

If you are planning to be at OSBC West in the next few days, I hope we will have the opportunity to connect.

There is much more to tell you, and I will be in touch over the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, if you have any questions about this news, please don't hesitate to contact me directly. My email address is listed on my profile page.

Thank you.

Monday, February 06, 2006

The Prince and the Golden Egg

The Prince and the Golden Egg

The January/February 2006 edition of Enterprise Open Source Journal has just been posted in an all-digital format (PDF and Flash versions) at www.eosj.com. Page 25 includes my article on open source project fundraising. I am posting the first paragraph of the article now, and will post the entire article when the next issue of EOSJ is released in early April.

---

Once upon a time, in a castle in a far-away land, lived a prince with a golden egg...

While this may sound like a fairy tale, it’s actually the story of how an open source project was successful in raising funds to advance its efforts. And while I didn't meet the prince, I did have the good fortune of seeing the golden egg, in person.

The Commercialization of Open Source

[NOTE: As a follow-on to my blog entry "100 Million and Counting...", the November/December issue of Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ) has my article "The Commercialization of Open Source" (page 42). I am posting the article now as the new issue of the magazine has been released.]

The Commercialization of Open Source
by Raven Zachary

Several months ago, I noticed an increase in open source funding announcements. Was this just perception or were open source investments truly on the rise? I went back through archived news reports and determined that there was over 165 million US dollars in open source investments in the period from March through October of this year. This is by no means a complete survey of open source funding during the period, only funding that has been publicly disclosed. One can infer that even more was invested in open source, but remains to this date unreported. This 165 million was spread across 21 companies that were involved with open source in some way.

What we are now seeing is an increased trend in the commercialization of open source software. If you look at the history of open source initiatives, the primary form has been that of the project team – a loose affiliation of developers organized around the creation of software to solve a set of problems.

With greater enterprise adoption of open source, customers are demanding more mature services; training, consulting, and support. Project teams, by their nature, are not structured to serve this new wave of demanding customers. Many organizations want professional services to support their adoption of open source, without relying on a mix of internal expertise and the open source community at large.

Successful open source projects have dealt with the services demand either through referral to third party service providers or by going through a process of “productization,” sometimes supported through venture funding. A good example of this varied approach to growth is in the area of open source database software. PostgreSQL, for example, has spawned numerous services organizations and even a few new companies, while remaining, at its core, a project. MySQL, on the other hand transformed from a project into a company with a product, backed by the core project team, and a professional services offering. Both PostgreSQL and MySQL are open source projects with enterprise customers, but they are supported in different ways. Neither approach is necessarily any better than the other, but enterprise customers are more accustomed to the MySQL model, as it more closely resembles proprietary software.

If we compare the amount of funding in just the past eight months to the $149 million identified by VentureOne, a venture capital research firm, for open source investments in 2004, then we have already surpassed the amount invested during the prior year. The rate of open source investment is definitely increasing. So why the recent increase? It is the expected increase in demand from enterprise (a.k.a. “paying”) customers that is driving new investments into open source. Open source has proven itself in mission-critical, production environments, and adoption of open source is on the rise. It should also be noted that in this same period, we have seen three major open source acquisitions – Gluecode by IBM and Innobase by Oracle, for undisclosed amounts, and Sourcefire by Check Point, for $225M US dollars.

What’s interesting is that the 21 open source companies that have received venture funding in the past eight months, represent a variety of backgrounds. The founders of Alfresco and SugarCRM, for example, are applying prior subject matter expertise in the proprietary software world (from Documentum and E.piphany, respectively), to launch open source solutions. Funambol, a mobile synchronization project, obtained funding after the project had gained critical mass and key commercial partnerships. This is an example of open source productization that I mentioned above. EnterpriseDB and Groundwork are building businesses based upon successful open source projects, but are not founded by the project teams themselves. Laszlo, once a provider of licensed software, has transformed into an open source company in the past year to increase their customer base (and this strategy seems to have worked). Black Duck offers a solution for the management of open source code, but is not an open source project itself. The common thread through most of these investments (with the exception of commercial solutions to serve the open source market, such as Black Duck), is that the software and its source code are freely available.

The challenge with funding an open source company is that venture capitalists (VCs) have historically invested in software companies that provide revenue streams through both software licensing and services. With most open source investments, the software is given away for free, while the company charges for services. Without licensing revenue, the open source investment opportunity is with services, not the software itself.

Wanting to understand the VC perspective on recent open source investments, I spoke with Matt Miller, General Partner at WaldenVC and David Skok, General Partner at Matrix Partners. Miller serves on the Board of Directors for Palamida, an open source compliance management provider and Skok serves on the Board of Directors for JBoss, an open source middleware company.

Both agree that open source software models are here to stay. With lower overall sales and marketing costs, open source software companies carry less overhead than proprietary software companies. The customer acquisition costs are dramatically reduced with an open source business model. New software business proposals increasingly contain open source to some degree, but it takes more than adding open source to a business plan to be successful. “Hey, it’s a great new model of software. Let’s put it out there and make money on support!” says Miller jokingly.

A project must have a critical mass of users for there to be an opportunity to monetize services, turning users into customers. "One of the key requirements for a successful open source business is that it has to have a large community of users that are pro-actively coming to the company looking for support offerings. Without that inbound interest, the company will still have the high sales and marketing expenses of a traditional software company trying to evangelize their product, but would not have the license fees to offset those costs. In my opinion, it does not make sense to invest in Open Source companies if they don't have a community that has reached critical mass." says Skok.

Open source businesses may be getting more investment dollars than can be sustained by the demand right now. Both Miller and Skok caution that some VCs may be burnt on naïve open source investments, simply wanting to have a company in their investment portfolio. “The investment community is going out there right now and evaluating segments in enterprise software that don’t yet have an open source play for potential funding opportunities,” said Miller.

With over 100,000 open source projects, only a very small portion will gain critical mass in the enterprise, creating a need to support these customers with professional services. Some project teams do not need or do not want funding to pursue their goals. However, the venture funding of open source projects is on the rise, and while it’s not going to become the predominant model for growing open source projects, the commercialization of open source is undeniable. What we once thought of as a collection of projects is quickly becoming a mixed ecosystem of open source projects and products.

Recent Open Source Investments, March-October 2005

8 months, 21 companies, more than $165M US in investments

ActiveGrid (LAMP Stack): $10M
Alfresco (Content Management): $2M
BitTorrent (P2P Network): $8.75M
Black Duck (Compliance Management): $12M
Centeris (Linux Systems Management): $5M
EnterpriseDB (Database): $7M
Flock (Web Browser): $2M
Funambol (Mobile Synchronization): $5M
GroundWork (IT Management): $8.5M
JasperSoft (Reporting): $8M
Laszlo (Rich Internet Applications): $6.25M
Logicalware (Email Management): $.5M
OpenLogic (Stack Certification): $4M
Pentaho (Business Intelligence): $5M
rPath (Linux Software Management): $6.4M
Simula Labs (Open Source “Incubator”): $10-15M
SpikeSource (Stack Certification): $12M
SugarCRM (Customer Relationship Management): $18.77M
Ubuntu (Linux Distribution): $10M
Univa (Grid Infrastructure): $8M
Zimbra (Email Management): $16M

Raven Zachary is the Senior Technical Editor & Consulting Industry Analyst for EOSJ, the editor of the weekly Open Source Update eNewsletter, and is the Principal for o*rev, an enterprise open source consulting firm based in Dallas, Texas.

e-Mail: raven@orev.com
Website: www.orev.com
Blog: ravenzachary.blogspot.com

The Open Source Update #39

Compiled by Raven Zachary for Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ)

THIS WEEK'S TOP NEWS

RPATH OBTAINS $6.4 MILLION US FUNDING ROUND. rPath, an open source software 'appliance' company, obtains $6.4 MILLION US in its Series A investment round from North Bridge Venture Partners and General Catalyst Partners.

NEW SURVEY RESULTS EXPLORE OPEN SOURCE DEMAND. A recent survey of IT decision makers by Exadel, an open source solutions company, finds that demand for open source is growing, but a lack of knowledge and limited commercial support are both obstacles to more widespread adoption.

LINUX FOUNDER SAYS 'NO' TO GPL3. Linus Torvalds, the founder of Linux, says that the Linux kernel will continue to use version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL) indefinitely.

INDUSTRY ALLIANCE FORMED BY NETWORKING COMPANIES. Alcatel, Ericsson, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, and Siemens announce the creation of the SCOPE Alliance, an industry alliance to accelerate the deployment of open carrier grade base platforms (including the use of open source software).

QLUSTERS RELEASES OPEN SOURCE SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT PROJECT. Qlusters releases openQRM, an open source systems management platform designed to automate the management of x86 servers in data center environments.

PERSPECTIVES
A collection of open source editorials, opinions, and blog entries from around the world.

Thinking About GPL3...
Jonathan Schwartz

Peter Quinn's First Interview
Pamela Jones

United States: Open Source: Answers To 10 Common Questions (IP)
Joel Lehrer and Ira Heffan

How to choose an open-source CMS
Seth Gottlieb

Open-Source Licensing: Here's What I've 'Noticed'
Heather Meeker


From Analog to VoIP: Asterisk Brings Telephony Together Under One Open-Source Platform
Howard Wen

OSBC director: Can Microsoft become one of the OSS guys?
Jack Loftus

openQRM cluster manager released as open source
Andy Oram

Sun Scores First 'Defensive' Open-Source Success
Charles Babcock

JBoss Diaries: interview with Sacha Labourey
Marc Fleury

ANNOUNCEMENTS
News, press releases, and announcements from open source vendors, organizations, and projects. Submit your news to update@eosj.com.

ActiveGrid
ActiveGrid Adds IBM DB2 Express-C to ActiveGrid's Enterprise LAMP Application Platform

Actuate
Actuate, IBM, Pentaho, Scapa Technologies and Zend Commit to Eclipse BIRT 2.0

Alfresco
Alfresco Launches Global Partner Network to Support Rapidly Expanding Deployment of Enterprise Content Management Solutions

BitRock
Alfresco and BitRock Enable Open Source ECM Stack Install in Minutes

Compiere
Compiere Announces New Management Dashboard for Open Source ERP & CRM Application

Concurrent
Concurrent And Novell To Offer Real-Time Computing Solution Powered By SUSE Linux

Continuent
Continuent Ships Database Virtualization Solution for PostgreSQL

Covalent
Covalent Announces Support for Apache Geronimo Application Server

db4objects
db4o Launches Hibernate-enabled Object to Relational Database Replication

Digium
Digium and Ranch Networks Team to Make Asterisk the Most Secure and Scalable VoIP Solution

ETI Software
ETI Migrates CableBridge and Triad to Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Exadel
Exadel Announces AJAX Support For JSF

Fonality
Open Source Pioneer Larry Augustin Joins Fonality's Board of Directors

Free Software Foundation (FSF)
Free Software Award Winner Announced

Free Standards Group (FSG)
The Free Standards Group Board Attracts Industry Leaders From Fujitsu, Gesmer Updegrove, HP, LPI, and Novell

Funambol
Funambol to Speak, Exhibit at World's Leading Mobile and Open Source Events Throughout First Half of 2006

Go Open Source
Go Open Source launches Channel Partner Programme

Greenplum
Greenplum Announces General Availability of Bizgres MPP

Groundwork
GroundWork Open Source Taps Tony Barbagallo as Vice President of Marketing

IBM
IBM Delivers Advanced Search and Business Insight Framework to Open Source Community

IONA
IONA Launches Services Packages For Customers Utilizing Objectweb Celtix Open Source ESB Project

InfoAxon
InfoAxon launches Professional Open Source Consulting & Support Services packages to enable enterprise embrace professional open source solutions while mitigating risk

JBoss
JBoss Growth Fuels Expanded Management Team

Lattix
Lattix LDM for Eclipse Now Available

Mandriva
Mandriva to support IBM's initiative to offer free dataserver

Mozilla Foundation
SeaMonkey 1.0 Released

Nokia
Nokia to Release Python for S60 Source Code to Open-Source Software Developer Community

Novell
Novell Delivers Comprehensive Bundled Linux Solution for Mid-sized Enterprises

Open Source Business Conference (OSBC)
Open Source Startups and the VCs Who Fund Them Featured at Open Source Business Conference

Open Source Storage
Open Source Storage (OSS) Datacenter Ready Servers and Storage Solutions Power Leading News Site TOPIX.NET

Open-Xchange
New Open-Xchange 'OXtender' Enables Replacement of Windows Server

Optaros
Optaros Releases White Paper "Service Oriented Architecture and Open Source Solutions"

Pervasive
Did-It Search Marketing Recognizes Benefits of PostgreSQL through Assistance from Pervasive Software

Qlusters
Qlusters Announces Industry's First Open Source Systems Management Project

Red Hat
Red Hat Adds Muscle to One Laptop Per Child Movement

rPath
rPath Announces Series A Funding of $6.4M

Sleepycat
Sleepycat Software Releases New Version of Berkeley DB Java Edition

SplendidCRM
SplendidCRM Software Closes the Gap

SourceForge
SourceForge.net Introduces Subversion Support for Key Open Source Projects

SourceLabs
SWiK, the Popular Online Community for Open Source Projects, Shows Significant Traffic Gains

SugarCRM
SugarCRM passes 1 Million download mark for "All things Sugar!"

Sun
Sun Microsystems NetBeans Achieves Broad Developer Adoption

Symantec
Symantec and IBM xSeries Help Entertainment Partners Eliminate Downtime With Linux

Trolltech
Trolltech demonstrates strong 2005 growth in cross-platform application development and embedded Linux

Turbolinux
Turbolinux to Advance Linux Market Leadership Position in China

Unisys
Security and Competitive Concerns Force Financial Institutions to Find Creative Ways to Regain Eroding Consumer Trust in 2006

Zend
Zend Technologies Announces Significant Update for Zend Core for IBM

Zimbra
Zimbra Simplifies Integration of Messaging and Web Technologies with Zimlets

UPCOMING EVENTS

ObjectWebCon'06
Paris, France
January 31-February 2, 2006

OSBC West
San Francisco, CA, USA
February 14-15, 2006

LinuxWorld Conference & Expo
Boston, MA, USA
April 3-6, 2006

MySQL Users Conference 2006
Santa Clara, CA, USA
April 24-27, 2006

JBoss World 2006
Las Vegas, NV, USA
june 12-15, 2006