Open Source Solutions

I haven't been doing any "live blogging" this OSBC. Yesterday was very hectic. I did some interviews, attended some sessions, and had many great conversations. Today was less hectic, and I even got to pull out the MicroTrak to record a podcast with Brian Reale of ProcessMaker.

I actually got to this panel session early enough to grab a piece of table and set-up my laptop. This panel is "Open Source: Out of the Server, Into the Network" moderated by Larry Augustin, Managing Director, Augustin Ventures and comprised of Artur Bergman, Director of Engineering, Wikia, Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO, Funambol, Kelly Herrell, CEO, Vyatta, and Mark Spencer, Founder and CTO, Digium.

Much of the conversation in the first part of the panel centered around Cisco as a monopoly, pricing of "enterprise class" at three or four orders of magnitude over similar items from the the local electronics store, and adapting Linux for network use. What I heard was the commoditization of the network. The same discussion I was having with the CEO of a communications VAR 10 years ago. At that time, the industry was going through a sea change where the old way was to have system engineering as a free, value-added service as part of the sales process for large, multi-million dollar PBX, EDGE Router, telecomms & networking deals. The new way hadn't been decided yet, but the margins were being forced down to under 15% - commoditization. Today this panel was talking about COTS hardware running specialized open source software to replace network gear and PBXs - commoditization.

But where's the value? Fabrizio hit the nail on the head: community, the power of community and using open source to build a community. Why is there value in community? I think we can sum this up with customization, localization, and common needs.

Larry summarized it as a vertical market coming apart horizontally.

Great session all the way around.