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(Some of) My Favorite People

  • Chris DiBona
    Chris is a just plain great person and stand-up guy. He's also the Open Source program manager at Google.
  • Doc Searls
    Doc is the senior editor at Linux Journal and one of the four authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, the iconoclastic web site that became the best-selling book.
  • Matt Asay
    Matt is the founder of OSBC, and currently runs business development at Alfresco.
  • r0ml Lefkowitz
    The r0ml is one of the most entertaining and insightful commentators on the state of the IT industry that I know.
  • Stephen Walli
    I first met Stephen when he worked at Microsoft, and I organized a dinner at OSCON between Eric Raymond and a number of the Microsoft Shared Source team. I liked him even then so that should tell you a lot.

Matt Asay Moves to Alfresco

My friend Matt Asay has moved to Alfresco (formerly Activiti).  Good luck Matt!

I think it's a great move.  Since the beginning of 2003 I've been repeating the theme that now is the time for Open Source to go after Enterprise Applications.  Alfresco is a perfect example of that trend.  Along with other Open Source applications like Medsphere, SugarCRM, Compiere, and Asterisk it demonstrates the vulnerability of Enterprise appplication software and the traditional Enterprise Software business model.  The traditional Enterprise software business model is dying.  Long sales cycles, expensive pilots, and a high prioced field salesforce are things of the past.  Customers are tired of having companies charge them to buy their software.  They want to test and evaluate on their own.  Open Source gives them that option.

November 12, 2005 in People | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Recent Posts

Archives

My Companies


  • I am involved with these companies as an investor and board member.
  • Compiere
    Open Source Enteprise Resource Planning (ERP). News
  • Fonality
    Open Source VoIP PBX based on Asterisk. News
  • Hyperic
    Open Sources systems/application management. News
  • Medsphere
    Open Source Electronic Health Record (EHR). News
  • Pentaho
    Open Source Business Intelligence (BI). News
  • SugarCRM
    Open Source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. News

My Other Investments


  • I am an investor in and/or advisor to these companies.
  • DeviceVM
    Embedded virtualization for consumer devices. News
  • Eloqua
    On-line lead generation and marketing automation. News
  • Interface21 (Spring)
    Interface21 is the company behind Spring, the Java/J2EE application framework. News
  • ITerating
    Wiki-based directory with reviews of Open Source and commercial software. News
  • MuleSource
    Mule is then world's most widely-used Open Source ESB and integration platform. News
  • Novara Clinical Research
    Novara Clinical Research operates dedicated facilities for conducting Phase II to Phase IV patient studies for the pharmaceutical industry. News
  • Ohloh
    Mapping the open source world by collecting objective information on open source projects. News
  • VirtualLogix
    Real-time virtualization for mobile devices. News
  • Vyatta
    Open Source router and firewall. News
  • WSO2
    Next generation Open Source Web services platform. News
  • Zend
    The PHP company. News

My Exits

My Current Reading List

  • Robert Jordan: Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time, Book 11)

    Robert Jordan: Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time, Book 11)
    I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I'm still reading Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. When he passed L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth decology I could have cried. Maybe WoT will be made into the worst movie of all time? Still, I've been following the saga of Rand al'Thor for more than a decade now, and I want to see how it ends. Rumor is that the next book, Memory of Light, will in fact conclude the saga. To borrow a phrase, "There should have been only one." (**)

  • Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)

    Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
    My family got me Quicksilver for Christmas. I'm not far into it, but it's clearly a Stephenson book: lots of historical connections, multiple timeline unfolding simultaneously, meticulous historical detail, 100 pages in the plot is still a total mystery, big "thud"factor... Should be a great read.

  • Chris DiBona: Open Sources 2.0

    Chris DiBona: Open Sources 2.0
    Anything edited by Chris DiBona is worth spending the time to read.

  • David Kahn: The Codebreakers : The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet

    David Kahn: The Codebreakers : The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet
    I'm just getting started with this one, but so far it's a fascinating account of the history of cryptology. It's a massive 1200 pages, so it may be a while before I move on to something else.