Money

Dec 28, 2008

Open source business models must be voluntary

Posted by freesoftnews in Money No comments

Entrepreneur Dave Rosenberg has a Christmas wish for you.
(This is the first cat my wife and I owned. Mouse over to get the name for this Cat of Christmas past.)
Dave wants to make everyone pay for open source in 2009.
Money is the fuel that keeps things going. Entrepreneurs are in business to make money. It [...]


Dec 23, 2008

Red Hat shakes off economic meltdown

Posted by freesoftnews in Money No comments

While commercial Linux distributor Red Hat has not grown enough to justify the ridiculous valuations that Wall Street put on the company when it went public a decade ago, the company is more or less on track to break $1bn in sales in the next couple years.
In the third quarter of fiscal 2009 ended November [...]


Dec 22, 2008

Seven Ways From Sunday: Reducing Costs

Posted by freesoftnews in Money No comments

Welcome to the new series, Seven Ways From Sunday, that replaces the Crystal Ball Sunday Series. This new series focuses on a single aspect of IT management from an “in the trenches” point-of-view. Being in list format, it will help you, the busy professional, quickly absorb and assess necessary information.
In this introductory entry, I examine [...]


Dec 14, 2008

HP Opens Up Open Source for Small Businesses

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HP has been quirky over the years when it comes to open source. It has been, traditionally, a company that supports open source — especially in larger enterprises. While large businesses are a major focus for HP — and it has supported open source in other ways — a “smaller business” line of open source [...]


Dec 13, 2008

Dell customer awarded Windows refund

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Customer refused refund guaranteed in Windows licensing agreement sues Dell, settles out of court. Case first of its kind in Israel
Zvi Devir from Haifa was recently able to do the impossible: He held Dell to the fine print in its end-user license agreement.
Many laptop manufacturers, such as HP, Lenovo and Dell, have an OEM agreement [...]


Dec 7, 2008

Cost-Conscious Companies Turn to Open Source Software

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After the tech bubble burst, E*Trade’s technology chief, Lee Thompson, needed to find a way to do more with less. In 2001 and 2002, the online stock trading company shrank its tech budget by one-third. “We had to go through and figure out every penny that we were spending and make alternatives to reduce those [...]


Dec 6, 2008

10 Reasons To Choose Linux in a Bad Economy

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Whether the ailing economy is real or imagined, you might be looking for ways to shed some pounds off your bloated IT budget. You should seriously consider Linux and Open Source software to put your 2009 financial appetite on a diet. Here are 10 reasons to choose Linux in a bad economy and none of [...]


Dec 3, 2008

Mandriva falls on bad days - again

Posted by freesoftnews in Mandriva, Money No comments

The global economic crisis is taking its toll on many technology companies and Mandriva, the Linux company based in France, has now taken a hit.
Last week, the company announced that it would be terminating the services of all its external contractors, that is those who work from remote locations.
This includes Adam Williamson, a moderator for [...]


Dec 2, 2008

Open Source: The Model Is Broken

Posted by freesoftnews in Money No comments

For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention to the software industry lately, I have some bad news. The open-source business model is broken.
Companies have long hoped to make money from this freely available software by charging customers for support and add-on features. Some have succeeded. Many others have failed or will falter, and their ranks [...]


Nov 30, 2008

How open should your open source business strategy be

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Running an open source company is not like running a proprietary company.
But how different should it be? Does the difference include publicly beating your breast about mistakes both real and imagined?
Sridhar Vembu is not afraid to find out. The CEO of AdventNet, creators of the Zoho online suite, has quickly become one of the industry’s [...]


Nov 23, 2008

The tanking economy and OSS

Posted by freesoftnews in Money Comments Off

The economy is falling as fast as temperatures in November. Recession seems certain, if it’s not already here. The stock market’s performance resembles Disney World’s Space Mountain roller coaster. And every open source vendor, every Linux project, will be touched in one way or another.
Matt Asay of Alfresco, which makes a Linux-based open source content [...]


Nov 22, 2008

Public Open Source Companies: Much Ado About Nothing?

Posted by freesoftnews in Money Comments Off

The other day, in the post How Low Can Public Open Source Companies Go? I mentioned that Red Hat, Novell and Sun Microsystems now have such incredibly low market capitalizations that the independent existence of these open source leaders is threatened. The situation is substantially worse a few days later, with Red Hat’s share price [...]


Nov 18, 2008

Gartner: Open source in every business within 12 months

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Open-source software is almost universal in the enterprise, a survey from analyst group Gartner Inc. has confirmed.
New research has highlighted how pervasive open-source software (OSS) has become, with 85% of companies currently using OSS and the remaining 15% expecting to in the next 12 months.
The findings come from a Gartner survey conducted in May and [...]


Nov 14, 2008

Black Duck’s Financial Success and Indexing Open Source

Posted by freesoftnews in Money Comments Off

As noted on ZDNet, Black Duck Software, which services managed and secure implementations of open source software, just had a phenomenal third quarter, with quarterly bookings for its services up 62 percent. There were some other strong metrics for the company as well. This company has a shrewd approach toward the growing open source arena, [...]


Nov 13, 2008

Open Source in a Down Economy: The Money Race Is On

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The sour economy is causing industries and individuals alike to tighten their belts in just about all areas of spending, including software. Downloading free and low-cost open source software is often an attractive alternative to proprietary commercial products. The potential for enterprises and other users switching from high-priced software to open source alternatives poses a [...]


Nov 12, 2008

SMBs early adopters of open source CRM

Posted by freesoftnews in Money 1 comment

Small and midsize businesses are among the early adopters of open source enterprise applications in Asia, where the majority of open source vendors are based outside the region, according to an IDC report released Tuesday.
Beyond just cost savings, more businesses in the region are turning to open source because they desire to be free of [...]


Nov 10, 2008

You can have your computer and save money, too

Posted by freesoftnews in Money Comments Off

Ever wonder how much money you could save on computing if you put your mind to it? PCs and Macs can be fabulously expensive if you want peak performance and bells and whistles. But a fairly modest investment is good enough for the basics of Internet and office applications.
Because of the weak economy, I thought [...]


Nov 5, 2008

Open-Xchange nabs $9 million to fight Exchange

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Open-source email company Open-Xchange has raised a $9 million Series B round in a difficult financing environment, bringing its total funding to $17.8 million.
With this fresh infusion of cash Open-Xchange is expected to mount a more serious challenge to Microsoft’s ubiquitous Exchange product. Open-Xchange claims 8.4 million paid mailboxes worldwide.
Read more at CNet


Nov 2, 2008

Editor’s Note: Does Linux Deliver For Small Businesses?

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The answer is Yes, it does, though with some qualifications. The short answer: it’s all in the implementation. The long answer starts with taking a look at Canonical’s successes in opening new doors for Linux deployments.
Canonical and Ubuntu have dominated the Linux news scene for several months now, even more than they did before. They’re [...]


Oct 31, 2008

Is Linux Truly Small Business Ready?

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Nearly everyday we hear about how the modern Linux distributions are not only ready for the home user, they can even meet the growing demands of many small businesses as well. But rather than debating this point, I’ll examine the tools that would potentially mean that more small businesses would feel the confidence to take [...]