Obama is campaigning for change. McCain is campaigning for change. And now, Red Hat is campaigning for change. The software company will spend next week evangelizing the government’s growing need for open source. It’s a smart, timely move by Red Hat. Here’s why.
The VAR Guy complains when open source companies ignore key vertical market events. IBM, Microsoft and Oracle hype their software — loudly — at retail, financial services, health care and other types of conferences. In stark contrast, open source software companies often have a minimal presence at vertical market events.
One key exception: Red Hat Oct. 7 will hosted its fourth annual Government Users and Developers Conference.
According to a Red Hat press release, the conference will include:
- A presentation from the United States Marine Corps on the best practices they identified while implementing a tactical service-oriented architecture (SOA) environment, including the benefits of using open source software and JBoss Enterprise Middleware solutions to ease their migration, integration, management and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Three simultaneous tracks featuring presentations from Red Hat executives and partners on the latest trends in infrastructure, middleware, security and management for government agencies. Sessions will also preview what’s coming next in virtualization, SOA, data services and security.
- Hands-on labs, providing attendees with practical knowledge and skills to optimize their investment in Red Hat solutions.
Sure, some of those sessions will hype Red Hat solutions rather than describing the bigger picture for open source in government. But Paul Smith, Red Hat’s VP of government sales operations, has vowed that the conference will also cover policy enhancements that will propel open source forward within government agencies.
The VAR Guy has only one request: Next year, make partners (solutions providers, VARs and managed service providers) a core audience for this event as well.
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Tags: Linux in Government | Open Source in Government | Open Source in Vertical Markets | Red Hat Govertnment Users and Developers Conference
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Found this from a google alert and thought it appropriate and noteworthy to the cause.
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2008/10/03/software-ubs-downgrades-adbe-intu-crm-symc/?mod=googlenews_barrons
ken
“grabber”
October 3, 2008, 9:46 am
Software: UBS Downgrades ADBE, INTU, CRM, SYMC
Posted by Eric Savitz
Citing concerns about the softening macro economy and ongoing market volatility, UBS software analyst Heather Bellini this morning cautioned that estimates for the sector “need to come down materially” for the second half and for 2009. She also asks whether software companies that typically provide guidance for the year ahead will continue the practice given the lack of visibility - and she cautions that foreign exchange, which has been a tailwind for the stocks for the last 8 quarters, will provide a headwind in the fourth quarter and into next year.
Bellini today cut her ratings on four stocks:
Adobe (ADBE): To Sell from Neutral.
Intuit (INTU): To Sell from Neutral.
Salesforce.com (CRM): To Sell from Buy.
Synamtec (SYMC): To Neutral from Buy.
Bellini notes that she also is reducing estimates “on virtually every company in our coverage universe both for the remainder of 2008 as well as for 2009.”
Bellini’s only remaining Buy recommendations are Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Novell (NOVL).
“The one constant in all of our channel conversations has been that there is practically no visibility right now and as such they themselves are setting very conservative targets for Q4,” Bellini writes. “We note that the last time visibility was this poor was back in 2001-2003, when many companies (not all) backed away from providing guidance.”