O'Reilly Coverage of OSBC & Spike Source

Kevin Shockey has been reporting about the conference and SpikeSource a lot.

Open Source Business Conference - Day One Wrap-Up

If nothing else, listening to the speakers today leaves one with a great sense of optimism for open source and the software industry. Something Kim offered early in her speech was the prediction that there would be more money made because of open source than from it. This is certainly true for Google and similar web sites running a mostly open source stack of software.

I truly enjoyed Kim's choice of using the work of Hugh MacLeod from the Gaping Voido illustrate her slide deck. I really enjoyed the graphics, and I think it complemented her
optimistic message.

SpikeSource announces general availability

I would have to say that so far Kim Polese and her team have made the biggest impression on me and perhaps on the conference attendees as well. Yesterday they had a large team in place, and even larger if you consider that most of their Advisory Board was in attendance. With that large of a team, I'm sure there was a lot of buzz surrounding their announcements....

One market they may want to include within their focus is the "medium" size business with an internal software development capability. The size of the development shop I'm thinking of is between 10 and 20 developers, coders, analysts, and testers. As a previous director of software development management, I can appreciate the value in having a testing service available. I can appreciate the ability of a development shop to validate an internally built solution and a service to inform me of the fixes most critical to the operational performance of that system.

A new look for SpikeSource.com

Last night SpikeSource unveiled their first surprise for today. During the middle of they launched a completely redesigned web site. Finally, the picture starts to come into focus. From my initial analysis they seem to want to, at least at this point, become a development shops best friend. This could become a sly move. As I have always said: "he who controls the developers, controls the market." Clever indeed.

For the curious they have announced some pricing information which finally shows some information about their direction and plans. I wonder how much a gold or silver support plan might cost?

SpikeSource helps give rebirth to the software industry

As for a rebirth of software for corporations. Well.... I believe that corporations will almost always be beholden to specific vendor solutions. As time goes by I become more sure that we will have a completely heterogeneous information technology future. In every sense of this phrase. Open source software will not eliminate all other forms of software. It goes against everything that 40 years of history has taught us. In addition, as long as there are niche solutions, corporations will accept whatever technology those solutions bring. I remember receiving a wide spectrum of technology whenever we purchased an "integrated" solution. Whatever technology that solution required, we received. Whether this will change as software continues it's march towards commoditization is yet to be seen.

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