VMware announced on August 10, 2009 its willingness to acquire SpringSource for $362 million in cash and equity, plus $58 million of unvested stock and options (press release). The process should be closed in Q3 2009.

How can this acquisition be interpreted? What are the goals of VMware/SpringSource?

Some interesting inputs and analysis found on Internet.

A post from Rod Johnson, CEO of SpringSource

About the merge itself

[…] We have signed a definitive agreement with VMware, who will acquire SpringSource. Subject to regulatory approval, we expect the transaction to close in Q3. SpringSource will become a division within VMware. I will continue to lead SpringSource, reporting to VMware CEO Paul Maritz.

About the opportunity

[…] But the broader transformation in IT goes beyond Java frameworks, tooling and runtime infrastructure. The way in which people think about software stacks is changing. Virtualization is reshaping the data center, and cloud computing is set to drive far-reaching changes. Significantly, cloud computing blurs the division between development and operations, bringing new power (and responsibility) to developer.

And so the question becomes, what is the most simple, powerful, pragmatic way of utilizing SpringSource technologies in the data center, and in the cloud?

About the vision

Working together with VMware we plan on creating a single, integrated, build-run-manage solution for the data center, private clouds, and public clouds. A solution that exploits knowledge of the application structure, and collaboration with middleware and management components, to ensure optimal efficiency and resiliency of the supporting virtual environment at deployment time and during runtime. A solution that will deliver a Platform as a Service (Paas) […]

About the vision (said in other words)

The next chapter of our work at SpringSource is tackling those challenges: Building on our Build/Run/Manage solution to provide the industry’s best solution from developer desktop to cloud deployment. Bringing Spring’s power and simplicity to enabling the millions of Java developers to benefit from the full power of cloud computing. […]

About the representation of this vision

About the open source community

Our commitment to open source practices, licenses and traditions will remain unchanged. We expect our contributions to open source to increase. Our open source projects will retain their commitment to enabling user choice. Spring will retain the portability between deployment environments that empowers users. […]

An analysis from 451 CAOS Theory

Part I

[…] VMware is clearly in need of a story beyond virtualization, even if we are still relatively early on in enterprise adoption. Still, looking into the future, it sees clear skies, and that does not fit with the multi-billion dollar opportunity shaping up in cloud computing. Thus, VMware is willing to invest a significant amount in SpringSource, which does represent a crossover in customers without much, if any, crossover in competition.

Part II

VMware is working to address its increasing competition from all sides. While it may seem somewhat odd for VMware to want to get involved in enterprise Java application development and deployment, it may want to take advantage of SpringSource’s relatively quick climb in the enterprise Java development and support business. VMware may also be looking to offset any gain in enterprise Java influence and control by Oracle, which may do so with its more than $7 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Part III

VMware is also facing increasing competition from OS vendors, including Microsoft, Novell and Red Hat, which is among SpringSource’s biggest competitors with its JBoss business. Again, SpringSource may not seem the most likely suitor for Java application development, but VMware may see this as an area where it can most effectively integrate its own technology and talent to differentiate in virtualization and cloud computing.[…]

Open source?

Although SpringSource’s open source nature has been critical to its developer reach and success, this is likely not as important to VMware, which may view SpringSource more as a subscription software company than as an open source software company. Either way, it seems VMware, similar to Oracle, may have somewhat limited vision when it comes to open source software, seeing it for its development and time-to-market advantages, but missing other community benefits — including user and customer communities, feedback and contributions — that help make things work.[…]

Disclosure: Innoveo Solutions is using Spring in its Innoveo Skye™ software product.

cross-posted on Didier Beck’s blog.

I am very proud to announce that Cédric Walter, one of our colleague and founding member of Innoveo, is nominated to the EOS Directory (Enterprise Open Source Directory) Advisory and Expert Board. Cédric is a very well-known contributor of the Joomla community since 2004.

EOS Directory is a great catalog of more than 350 open source projects, that are listed, described and analyzed. It is today the leading online platform to help enterprises and organizations identify and evaluate Open Source technologies. Initially launched by Optaros, about two years ago, the platform has been recently handed over by Bruno von Rotz, initial sponsor of the initiative, well known Open Source specialist, and one of our Innoveo Board Member.

In support to strengthen the neutral approach to ratings and selection of the technologies, the new EOS Directory Advisory and Expert Board has been established over the last weeks.

The Advisory and Expert Board will be both instrumental in guiding the future development of the EOS Directory Platform as well as in making sure that the content is accurate, relevant and fairly represented. (Source: EOS Directory Blog)

Congratulations to Cédric!

More Information on Cédric’s blog and the EOS Directory blog.

Cross-posted on Didier Beck Blog.

via Judith Hurwirtz

Judith has attended to the last IBM Rational Conference and is sharing with us some noteworthy aspects of the “changing landscape of software development”.

1. Rational is moving from tools company to a software development platform. […]
2. More management, fewer low level developers [were attending the conference] […]
3. Rational has changed dramatically through acquisitions. […]
4. It’s all about Jazz. Jazz, IBM’s collaboration platform was a major focus of the conference.  Jazz is an architecture intended to integrate data and function.  Jazz’s foundation is the REST architecture and therefore it is well positioned for use in Web 2.0 applications. What is most important is that IBM is bringing all of its Rational technology under this model. Over the next few years, we can expect to see this framework under all of the Rational’s products.
5. Rational doesn’t stand alone. […] What I found quite interesting was the emphasis on the intersection between the Rational platform and Tivoli’s management services as well as Websphere’s Service Oriented Architecture offerings. Rational also made a point of focusing on the use of collaboration elements provided by the Lotus division.  Cloud computing was also a major focus of discussion at the event.[…] The one area that IBM seem to have hit a home run is its Cloud Burst appliance which is intended create and manage virtual images. Rational is also beginning to deliver its testing offerings as cloud based services. One of the most interesting elements of its approach is to use tokens as a licensing model. In other words, customers purchase a set number of tokens or virtual licenses that can be used to purchase services that are not tied to a specific project or product.

Cross-posted on the Didier Beck Blog

Fast comparison between LinkedInand Xing.

Xing

• November 1, 2003 - 5 1/2 years old
• 7 million members
• 26’000 groups
• 16 languages
• 600’000 paying members
• 240 employees from 22 nations

LinkedIn

• May 5, 2003 - 6 years old
• 40 million members, thereof 10 million in Europe and 800’000 in France
• 300’000 user groups
• 4 languages
• 345 employees

My LinkedIn profile (member since March 2004, i.e. more than 5 years)

My Xing profile (member since November 2005).

The Innoveo LinkedIn profile and the Innoveo Xing profile.

Cross-posted on Didier Beck Blog.

via Judith Hurwitz

Judith is bringing, as usual, interesting feeds for thoughts, this time in the field of software maintenance fees.

[…] As the world slowly moves to cloud computing for economic reasons there will be a major impact on how companies pay for software. Salesforce.com has indeed proven that companies are willing to trust their sales and customer data to a Software as a Service vendor. These customers are also willing to pay per user or per company yearly fees to rent software. Does this mean that they are no longer paying maintance fees? My answer would be no. It is all about accounting and economics. Clearly, Salesforce.com spends a lot of money adding functionality to its application and someone pays for that. So, what part of that monthly or yearly per user fee is allocated to maintaining the application? Who knows? And I am sure that it is not one of those statistics that Salesforce.com or any other Software as a Service or any Platform as a Service vendor is going to publish. Why? Because these companies don’t think of themselves as traditional software companies. They don’t expect that anyone will ever own a copy of their code.

The bottom line is that software will never be good enough to never need maintenance. Software vendors — whether they sell perpetual licenses or Software as a Service– will continue to charge for maintance. The reality is that the concrete idea of the maintenance fee will evolve over time. Customers will pay it but they probably won’t see it on their bills.  Nevertheless, the impact on traditional software companies will be dramatic over time and a lot of these companies will have to rethink their strategies. Many software companies have become increasingly dependent on maintenance revenue to keep revenue growing.  I think that Marc Benioff has started a conversation that will spark a debate that could have wide ranging implications for the future of not only maintenance but of what we think of as software.

Interesting!

Cross-posted on the Didier Beck Weblog.

via Between the Lines

As everybody already knows, Oracle is buying Sun for about $7.4 billion, including Sun’s debt ($9.50 a share in cash). Some interesting thoughts from Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of ZDNet.

• [Oracle] added that the acquisition of Java “is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired.”
• Oracle also becomes a full-fledged hardware player.
• Oracle and Sun have been long-time partners. […] “More Oracle databases run on the Solaris Sparc than any other system,” said Ellison, noting Linux was second. “We’ll engineer the Oracle database and Solaris operating system together. With Sun we can make all components of the IT stack integrated and work well.”
• Oracle with Sun appears to be the Apple of the enterprise. Indeed, Oracle President Charles Phillips noted that the company is looking to offer everything from apps to the disk.
• Oracle’s stack of IT stuff now includes:
  • Java;
  • Solaris;
  • Enterprise applications ranging from CRM to ERP to business intelligence;
  • The database (Oracle and MySQL);
  • The middleware;
  • The storage hardware;
  • Cloud computing services;
  • And servers.
• Art of War approach:
  • Oracle gets to annoy IBM—and own Java—over a few pennies a share more than Big Blue was willing to pay.
  • Oracle gets to kill MySQL. There’s no way Ellison will let that open source database mess with the margins of his database. MySQL at best will wither from neglect. In any case, MySQL is MyToast.
  • Sun has a big installed base. All the better to upsell applications into.
• Sun was relatively cheap compared to Oracle’s other acquisitions. The price was above the Hyperion buyout but below PeopleSoft and Siebel.
• Oracle saves Sun management from what could have been a complete debacle following the IBM takeover talks. The Sun board had been split on the IBM deal. Today, it’s all roses.

The official Oracle press release can be found here.

It is clear that this deal will change the IT landscape quite massively. And the consolidation is definitely not finished…

Cross-posted on Didier Beck Blog.

via Judith Hurwitz

Judith has joined the yearly HP industry analyst summit organized by HP. This summit is dealing with everything at HP, excepted the PCs and printers. Based on the discussions there, Judith is giving her view on the possible future of HP. Very interesting analysis!

I think that HP is at a crossroads. Today it is the largest technology company. This is a wonderful opportunity because size gives customers comfort. […] On the other hand, it provides a challenge. When you are this big, you have to act big and bold. You have to set a leadership agenda that the market and the customers take note of. […]

1. Be Top Dog in Selected Markets. HP’s overall strategy remains consistent: it’s objective is to be either number 1 or 2 in each product category it participates in.  While HP has made some strides in achieving this lofty goal, it is still a work in process. […]
2. EDS is larger than HP’s printer business. With EDS as part of the portfolio, the amount of revenue from printers and ink has started to diminish. In fact, HP executives proudly announced that EDS is as large as  HP’s printer revenue. […]
3. Procurve chases Cisco in network management. While HP has been in the networking business for decades, it has been a well kept secret. Because of HP’s tight partnership with Cisco, HP has been wary of appearing to compete. However, it appears that HP is now willing to take on Cisco in the networking switching arena. […]
4. The software business is (still) important. HP has long had a love/hate relationship with software. HP has selected management and automation to focus its software business. […]
5. HP does the cloud. […] Clearly, the cloud strategy is a work in progress. But HP is thinking about the right issues as it makes its way into this important emerging area. HP’s intent is to leverage its software assets to create a common framework for its cloud strategy. HP anticipates that it can leverage EDS’s expertise to gain a cloud framework that it can leverage with customers.
6. HP expands Software as a Service. When HP acquired Mercury it also picked up a growing SaaS business. The company is planning to continue to focus on this arena both in the enterprise market and the SMB market. SaaS offerings will continue to focus both on the testing and the remote monitoring markets. […]

HP is very focused on being a provider of IT services, hardware, and software.  It has no desire to be a business management or a business consulting organization.  While HP  is most  comfortable in the hardware arena,  it is making important strides in this part of the business. […]

The software business, on the other hand, is still at a transition point. While HP has done extremely well with its performance management and testing business, it has had a hard time creating an overall software portfolio. Opsware is clearly being used to provide the foundation for cloud computing but it will take some more time and cycles for this platform emerges as a power. […]

In my view, there will be more aquisitions to come for HP. I suspect that most will be in software and will have to fill the gaps in data management and security. […]

 

Disclosure: we are at Innoveo member of the Development and Solutions Partner Program (DSPP) and a worldwide Financial Services Industry Partner.

Cross-posted on didier beck’s blog

via 451 CAOS Theory

Great post about some impressive figures from the Linux kernel development.

• There have been almost 10,000 patches in each recent quarterly Linux kernel release.
• Releases include work from ~1,000 developers and ~100 companies.
• Since 2005, Linux has had more than 3,600 individual developers and more than 250 companies contributing to the kernel.
• The individual development community has tripled in the last three years.
• The top 10 developers have contributed 15% of changes, and the top 30 developers have contributed 30% of changes to the kernel.
• Linus Torvalds is 27th on the list of contributors with most changes over the last few years. He has 495 to his name.
• More than 11,500 or 14% of kernel changes have come from developers with no commercial entity backing their Linux development.
• Another 13% of changes come from developers with ‘unknown’ commercial affiliation.
• When we get to actual companies, Red Hat leads with 9,351 kernel changes, or 11.2%. Next is Novell with 8.9%, IBM with 8.3% and Intel with 4.1% of kernel changes.
• More than 70% of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work.
• From the 2.6.11 kernel to the 2.6.24 release (1,140 days), there were an average of 2.8 accepted patches applied to the Linux kernel tree per hour.
• An average of more than 3,600 lines of code is added to the Linux kernel tree every day.
• Since 2005, the kernel has grown at a steady rate of 10% per year.

Gosh, if this is not showing the incredible health and dynamism of the Linux community!

cross-posted on didier beck's weblog.

Beginning of this week, Nick and I were able to assist to a business meeting with some people in Amsterdam - Holland, based on the last TelePresence system from Cisco. Below a picture taken just before the conference start in Zurich.

This experience, I must say, was absolutely great! You really feel the presence (good product name ;-) of the other participants thanks to the high-quality video (1080p), the fact that the 3 screens are reproducing the real size of the participants, and because of the quality of the sound (CD quality). The oval form of the table with each half-part on each side of the table is also a good idea.

More information: cisco TelePresence 3000 (pdf).

Below another picture from cisco. You see the both parts and a presentation projection just below the table (another good idea!).

Cross-posted on didier beck's weblog.

We are very proud at Innoveo to announce that we are now officially a Business Partner of HP (Hewlett-Packard) since about one month.

We are member of the Developer & Solution Partner Program (DSPP). Our front-end solution for the Insurance Industry and our company are listed in the worldwide partners and solutions catalog!

innoveo solutions is a software company whose products, services and technologies enable its insurance industry clients to create business value. It provides high-level expertise in software, multi-channel e-business platforms, SOA, architecture, open source, infrastructure in combination with insurance industry knowledge.

This membership is concretizing a solid, trustful and already quite long common partnership. And also the fact that quite a lot of us are former HP employees ;-)

All this was possible thanks to the great and constant support of Petra Wildemann, Worldwide Director Financial Services / Insurance at HP.

cross-posted on didier beck's weblog.