The VAR Guy

This blog entry is an annual ritual for The VAR Guy: As the National Retail Federation Convention 2009 starts in New York, many open source companies (Novell, Red Hat, Sun MySQL, Openbravo) appear to be absent. That’s a massive mistake for open source companies and their channel partners. Here’s why.

This year — perhaps more than ever — retailers are seeking IT solutions that will drastically slash company costs, drive new revenue opportunities or automate costly manual processes.

In today’s economy, the only people going to events are real customers with real problems who made real business cases to get out of the office. With all those factors in mind, you’d think the open source industry would attend the National Retail Federation Convention in full-force.

Sorry We Missed You

However, big open source companies like Red Hat, Novell and Sun Microsystems (MySQL) and small specialists like Openbravo (ERP and retail point of sale) are not listed among the event exhibitors.

That’s both surprising and confusing since:

• Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Sale seems like a promising product in search of publicity. Plus, Novell’s traditional SUSE Linux software is widely installed in Wal-Mart, Office Depot, Burlington Coat Factory and other retailers.
• Red Hat has a range of ISV (independent software vendor) partners writing retail applications for Linux. Sample partners include Magstar Inc. (Total Retail software) and EM Software.
• Sun’s MySQL team develops an embedded server package for retail customers.
• Openbravo acquired a point of sale system more than a year ago and the company has attracted 100 channel partners. But Openbravo still needs to get the word out about its POS system.

Those solutions need to be in front of vertical market customers and would-be partners. Instead, traditional vendors like Cisco Systems, IBM, Microsoft and SAP once again are dominating the IT discussions at the National Retail Federation Convention. (Kudos to those tech companies, shame on their smaller open source rivals.)

Microsoft even used the event — which is expected to attract more than 15,000 people — to launch a new operating system: Windows Embedded POSReady 2009.

The Bigger Problem

Meanwhile, open source companies spend too much time hanging out at open source events — and too little time converging on vertical market events where they can disrupt traditional IT markets. The VAR Guy pointed out that problem during last year’s National Retail Federation Convention.

Another problem: Small open source companies (the Openbravos of the world) often don’t have the big budgets required to participate in massive industry conferences. But weren’t open source consortiums — such as The Open Solutions Alliance — designed to help small companies pool their resources and get in front of new partners and customers?

Wouldn’t an open source applications pavillion make perfect sense at the National Retail Federation Convention? Hmmm. Perhaps The VAR Guy should sell that idea — and some floor space — in time for the 2010 event…

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