Marketing

Plat'Home, an early provider of Linux in Japan, following its eco-friendly Linux-based server announcement last month, is now announcing their OpenMicroServer is available to North American customers.

The OpenMicroServer is kind of an "extreme" use server pushing the boundaries for normal, low-cost hardware. In a 624-day endurance test, the OpenMicroServer performed normally under 122 degrees F conditions. The unit also employs a power efficient AMD Alchemy (MIPS) CPU and precise part placement based on thermo-fluid analysis to achieve semi-hermetic construction. It can handle down to the freezing point (0 degrees C), too. Detailed hardware specs are here. … Read more

Why is IBM avoiding Open Source in SOA discussions?

Cote at RedMonk noted that IBM didn't once mention open source at their SOA-focused Impact 2008 Conference. My guess? IBM wants the SOA paradigm to remain a rich-man's sport and they want their army of consultants to put IBM products into place. As such they focus on "the Business" instead of just solving the problem.

Instead of embracing open source as a part of SOA, IBM is choosing to push only it's own expensive and cumbersome products, which simply doesn't make sense.

To be puckish, I bet the open source world would have a … Read more

Japan's Plat'Home launching palm-sized Linux server in U.S.

Plat'Home, a very early Linux provider in Japan, is bringing back a small, easy-to-use, easy-to-configure solution for growing companies to North America.

Part of the first ecology-friendly line of Linux servers ever shipped in the United States, Plat'Home's OpenBlockS server has been built and tested to provide enterprise-grade reliability in its RISC-based hardware, and has eliminated moving parts including a hard disk drive and cooling fan. It is also RoHS-certified, a European Union directive meaning that it's free of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and other damaging materials.

Plat'Home introduced Linux in Japan in 1993 (… Read more

FuseCal web-based calendar sync (Alpha release)

FuseCal currently in alpha, lets you add iCal-based calendars (and a few other formats) to a master calendar, then choose whether all those events, just the ones you pick, or events filtered by keyword will be synced to Outlook, Apple iCal, Google Calendar, or another program.

If this works well it will help to usher in a whole new world of calendar management that has to date been a nightmare.

Via: Lifehacker

Adobe launches new product based on Alfresco

The newly revamped Adobe Share (beta) 1.3.5 is out today and is based on Alfresco, everyone's favorite open source ECM (enterprise content management) platform.

The latest version of Share offers PDF creation, updated Flash previews (supports full screen mode) and improved performance. The various rendition generations are based on Adobe LiveCycle, Creative Suite and other core technologies. Share also offers Web Services that developers could use to create desktop or online applications.

Why is this interesting? - The fact that a bigCo like Adobe is publicly stating that they are using open source at the core of … Read more

JasperSoft makes moves with Microsoft

I sat down with Brian Gentile, CEO of JasperSoft, to discuss what his open-source business intelligence software company announced Tuesday with regards to the evil empire. Here's what I found out:

JasperSoft BI Suite has achieved "Works with Windows" certification, which means that Jasper has passed the Windows Server 2008 test suite. This is an important step because a meaningful percentage of Jasper users are running Windows server.

JasperSoft ODBO Connect, which connects Microsoft Excel with Jasper Analysis multidimensional data sources, is immediately available. Connect is available for no extra charge with Jasper Analysis subscriptions. … Read more

Open source names to watch (Dave R. vs. Sarah Lacy Round 2)

The second part of my interview with Sarah Lacy over on Yahoo Tech Ticker is now live.

This time I explain what MuleSource (my company) does and discuss some of the other open source companies that I like, including Alfresco and Digium.

Next time I go on I plan to discuss why SaaS and open source are the only ways to build software companies going forward.

The Great Open Source Debate (Dave R vs. Sarah Lacy on Yahoo Tech Ticker)

I was lucky enough to hang out with Sarah Lacy and shoot a segment on Yahoo Tech Ticker and discuss how big the market for open source is, and how big it can get. We talk about MySQL, Zimbra, JBoss, Oracle and others.

In the interview process she hits me with some good questions about open source but fails to mention that I killed it on "Spanish Castle Magic" on Guitar Hero minutes before. She went with the predictable "Higher Ground" but managed to rock out really hard.

Can you build a billion-dollar business by selling … Read more

Starbucks wants you to help them charge you more

Starbucks pioneered the notion that coffee should be $3 a cup, and its been a great business model. However, the company has been late to the party on 2 areas: lower cost options and better tasting coffee, the confluence of which has caused the stock price to sag as the repeat visitors dipped.

Now the company is now trying crowdsourcing as its way to the future. (Note to self: get Starbucks to put my blog excerpts on its coffee cups)

The new MyStarbucksIdea site reminds me of Dell's Ideastorm, which was in part the impetus for Dell to start offering laptops preloaded with Ubuntu. … Read more