Another Take on Enterprise Open Source

Today's best conversation was with Christopher Young, of B2BSX, a startup software exchange where corporate IT departments can buy and sell their development efforts, and make a little cash to offset stressed budgets. It's an interesting idea, and spawned some ideas in a couple of different directions. Andy Hardy, IT Director Every company I've worked for has toyed with the idea of selling some of their custom-developed stuff - well, every company except the first one, since it was a…

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Open Source Insights on Enterprise Software Business Models

A recent Slashdot posting pointed to a presentation from EclipseCon earlier this month, given by Brent Williams, an equity research analyst who used to be in the software business. A few things really caught my eye … Take some time to flip through the original presentation; there are some interesting insights about the nature of the enterprise software industry (the SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft crowd). Three of the lightbulbs that went off in my mind ... (Slide 10) [By folding…

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Open Source as bargaining chip – driving business value of IT

I had a fun time this week proposing an open source alternative for an aging component of our EAI infrastructure. The reaction was so classic - the instant some IT folks saw the words "open source" in large type on the piece of paper, they smiled, crossed their arms, and tut-tutted the idea away. Oh, I heard all the classic shoot-down arguments ... "... critical piece of our day to day business transactions ..." "... I rarely need to call,…

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Free as in … the Open Source Refrain – Improved!

I'm not going to recount the history and foundations of open source software, just point out that the word "free" has long been a point of contention when folks talk about "free" software. For clarity, the open-source crowd will refer to ... Free (as in Speech), meaning the user's freedom to run, copy, distribute a piece of software Free (as in Beer), meaning the software is available at no cost BTW, the world is really into their free beer -…

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Implementing Intranet on Speed: The Beginning

This week, we're kicking off a new project, implementing an intranet / portal for our newly independent company. I'm fascinated at how the "state of the art " has moved forward so much since the "old days" of the 90's. This is actually my third or fourth cut at an application like this (depending on how you define "portal"), and I'm sure it's going a bit faster simply because we're skipping over some portal design and admin process "dead ends"…

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