Microsoft is involved in open source software again, most recently continuing its realignment on open source by taking a position on software licenses with the Linux Foundation of all places, and by getting its own CodePlex code included in Black Duck Software’s knowledgebase of open source. With self-described ‘strange bedfellow’ Linux Foundation, Microsoft lobbied the [...]

Open Database Alliance formed. Oracle buys Virtual Iron. AccesStream reaches version 1.0. And more.

Following the recent publication of Open to Investment, the latest CAOS research report, we will be hosting a webinar on Thursday May 14th, from 12pm – 1pm EDT to discuss some of the key findings of the report. Covering the past, present and future of venture capital investment in open source-related vendors the report contains [...]

Javier Soltero, former CEO of Hyperic, has maintained that the sale of Hyperic to SpringSource was driven by discussion between himself and SpringSource CEO, Rod Johnson, but the fact that the companies shared investors – Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital – no doubt accelerated the deal (and I wonder whether either could have afforded to [...]

Yesterday The 451 Group published Open to Investment, the latest CAOS research report, which examines the past, present and future of venture capital investment in open source-related vendors. The report contains analysis of the history of venture funding in open-source-related firms between 1997 and 2008, based on The 451 Group’s database of more than 370 [...]

It should not surprise anyone that the decline in funding for open source vendors seen in the second half of the year continued into the first quarter. According to our preliminary figures, there were just eight announced funding deals in the first quarter of 2009, compared to 22 in the first quarter of 2008. Seven [...]

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. [...]

NB The figures originally reported here were preliminary and have been revised for a formal CAOS report to be published in the first half of 2009. The figures for Q4 have been removed or updated, while those for the full year have been updated: The figures for publicly disclosed venture capital funding in open source [...]

I was thinking of writing a round-up of the key open source agenda items in 2008 but then I got distracted putting together some graphics, so – two birds with one stone – here’s open source in 2008 in pictures: (Some of these I’ve already written about, some of them I’ll write about next year. [...]

My CAOS colleague Matt Aslett wrote recently about how we expect to see an uptick in open source merger and acquisition activity given the current economic conditions and bargains for the larger, mostly proprietary players. Matt also discusses the difficulty of further VC funding, though we have seen some significant investment announcements, such as Open-Xchange, [...]

The figures originally reported here were preliminary and have been revised for a formal CAOS report to be published in the first half of 2009. In the interests of accuracy this data has now been removed. For a full assessment of VC funding in 2008 see this post.

VentureBeat and OStatic are among the news source reporting the launch of Cloudera a new vendor set up to provide support for Apache Hadoop and related projects. Given the current economic outlook it’s great to see a new open source start-up rearing its head, and the list of founders indicates that this one has a [...]

Until this week Infobright’s claim to open source fame was its partnership with MySQL that enabled its analytical data warehousing software to act as a storage engine for the open source database. However, the company is now taking the open source route itself by releasing the code behind its Infobright data warehouse (formerly Brighthouse) as [...]

A classic Morecambe and Wise comedy sketch from the 1970s sees Andre Previn criticizing Eric for playing all the wrong notes while attempting the Greig Piano Concerto. Morecambe responds that he is in fact “playing all the right notes. But not necessarily in the right order.” I was reminded of the sketch this morning while [...]

There are certain phrases that we tend to hear a lot from vendors — ‘enterprise-class, best of breed, customer choice,’ etc. However, I was repeatedly hearing somewhat surprising phrases as I made the rounds at LinuxWorld this year: ‘We don’t care, customers don’t care, no one cares …” Don’t get me wrong. Linux and open [...]

Three months after open source systems management vendor Qlusters handed its OpenQRM code over to Sourceforge the company has apparently closed its doors and fired its 30 remaining employees. The new is reported by Israeli newspaper Globes, which leaves no doubt about what it sees is to blame for the apparent failure of the company: [...]

The figures originally reported here were preliminary and have been revised for a formal CAOS report to be published in the first half of 2009. In the interests of accuracy this data has now been removed. For a full assessment of VC funding in 2008 see this post.

Venture Capital Journal has published an interesting article (subscription required) analyzing the state of venture capital funding in open source software. While some of the data is somewhat lacking* the article makes up for it with insight from the likes of Robin Vasan, Peter Fenton, Amit Pandey, Cameron Lester, Harold Goldberg, Larry Augustin, Lisa Lambert [...]

When we write about investors on this blog we are normally referring to angel and VC investors and the funding they provide to open source start-ups. There is a small, but growing, list of VCs that clearly understand the open source development and distribution models and the long-term profit potential of open source software vendors. [...]

Fresh off joining the Linux Foundation and extending its support for Flash Player and AIR runtime software to Linux, Adobe is heading up a new collaborative project to ease development and design of rich applications on a variety of devices from PCs and TVs to mobile devices and other consumer electronics. The Open Screen Project [...]