Sun reports second quarter results. Compiere reports 216% quarterly revenue growth. EnterpriseDB grows customers accounts. Hyperic and JasperSoft team up on BI for IT. Microsoft embraces Apache but resists GPL. And more.

To the disappointment of some and perhaps the relief of others, this blog is not about extra-terrestrials. No, instead it’s about a different ET, one that has far more relevance in the technology industry and open source software: energy technology. While current global economic conditions may have dimmed the brightness of ET and the business [...]

The UK’s Conservative Party has repeated its position that the use of open source software by central government could save the UK Government at least £600m per year. There are doubts, however, as there were when David Cameron talked up open source software in April last year, as to whether the party really “gets” open [...]

New funding for Talend and Lucid Imagination. Zimory and SQLstream make their debuts. The impact of Linux netbooks. Shaving Bdale Garbee. And more.

Topics for this podcast: *Open source gets into government *The Open Solutions Alliance and proprietary influences *Open source vendors continue to get VC funding *Lots of Linux netbook news iTunes or direct download (27:58, 6.5 MB)

IBM teams with Red Hat on desktop migration initiative. Alfresco launches Labs 3.0 and website developer tool. Scott McNealy pitches open source to Barack Obama. Zimbra founder leaves Yahoo. And more.

Matt Asay thinks it is likely that Microsoft will acquire its first open source company in 2009. I think he may well be right that Microsoft’s involvement in open source is now at the point where an open source license should not be a deal breaker (especially if its a permissive one). At the same [...]

As chance would have it, just after briefing with new Open Solutions Alliance President Anthony Gold, who also serves as VP and general manager of open source business at Unisys, I read a fairly critical blog about Gold and the OSA from Glyn Moody. I believe that Moody raises some valid points and offers Gold [...]

Not from The 451 Group, unfortunately, but from Sun’s chairman and co-founder Scott McNealy, who told the BBC he has been asked by the new administration to prepare a paper on how the use of open source software within government can improve both security and the cost-effective use of technology. According to McNealy: “The government [...]

I had an interesting time scouring the Internet for the right netbook for my wife, who’s got a birthday coming up, is due for a new computer and is anxious to use Linux more regularly. While there was the usual difficulty in finding the right specs and color, the biggest hangup was trying to find [...]

Red Hat updates Enterprise Linux. Vyatta announces significant progress. Intalio is looking for acquisition targets. A slight difference of opinion over Samba 4. CMSwire spills the beans on Alfresco Labs 3d. And more.

Open source BPM vendor Intalio turns 10 this year and is looking to celebrate by raising the funds necessary to finance a spending spree to acquire 8-10 open source vendors. Intalio’s CEO Ismael Ghalimi has sent an email to partners and users outlining the plan. He writes: The past 12 months have been especially interesting. [...]

As has been noted elsewhere, a report published recently by The 451 Group about opportunities for mergers and acquisitions of an by open source vendors is now freely available via The New York Times. The report is a more formal write up of some of thee issues discussed on this blog in November and updated [...]

Trolltech becomes Qt Software, goes LGPL. Marketcetera launches open source trading platform. Can FOSS save the economy? Open Kernel Labs and Identi.ca raise funding. And more.

Following my post about the importance of community management in 2009 here’s couple of interesting blog posts from yesterday related to community engagement/management: Bob Sutor’s Open source and the lone developer, and David Hornik’s Great Entrepreneurs Build “Tribes”. The posts actually deal with the preparation for, and leadership of, communities by an individual, although I [...]

Over this summer, at OSCON, LinuxWorld, other events and in briefings and other conversations, I saw and heard a lot about the importance of community managers and in the time leading up to last fall, community manager was a hot enterprise topic and hot enterprise job in open source and in the industry in general. [...]

Red Hat gets a new VP. rPath appoints former Red Hat COO as chairman. Ubuntu Launchpad to go open source. Open source Windows. SCO formally files for Chapter 11. And more.

I wrote last week about the commercial open source business strategies that I expect to dominate in 2009. The flipside to that is the commercial open source community strategy. You simply can’t have one without the other, and I expect community strategies will be a hot topic in 2009 and beyond. Savio Rodrigues wrote recently [...]

Topics for this podcast: Our commercial open source software outlook for 2009 *Impact of current economic conditions *Business strategies evolve *Community open source grows *What’s next in funding and M&A? iTunes or direct download (28:45, 6.6 MB)

EMC buys some, but not all, of SourceLabs. Cfengine launches data center automation software. Open source and TCO. Measuring corporate contributions to open source. And more.