HP Joins Open Source Channel Alliance Party
When the Open Source Channel Alliance — launched by Red Hat and Synnex — hosts its first conference for VARs and channel partners in late July, a surprise guest will be on hand: Hewlett-Packard. Here’s the scoop and the implications for channel partners.
First, a little about the Open Source Channel Alliance. Launched in April 2009, the group is striving to promote open source applications to more than 15,000 Synnex resellers. Potentially, the alliance represents a tipping point for open source in the IT channel.
Initially, the group included open source applications in such areas as email, databases and content management. Not by coincidence, many members of the Open Source Channel Alliance landed on The VAR Guy’s Open Source 50 report, which tracks the most promising open source partner programs.
Here Comes HP
Fast forward to the present, and the Open Source Channel Alliance is inviting Hewlett-Packard to the party. Apparently, HP hasn’t joined the alliance — but the hardware giant will attend the fist OSCA event.
At an event scheduled for July 23 in South Carolina, HP is expected to describe how its server and storage hardware can run open source applications within enterprises and small and midsize businesses.
Is this just another geek fest, filled with homeless hackers seeking free food? Hardly. Registrants will be charged $150 for not showing up, according to the event’s registration page.
Joining HP, Red Hat and Synnex at the event will be:
- Alfresco, which positions itself as the open source alternative to Microsoft SharePoint. Earlier this week, Alfresco insider Matt Asay told The VAR Guy’s readers that the company was going and profitable despite the recession.
- Zimbra, which has formalized its partner program since being acquired by Yahoo.
- EnterpriseDB, the open source database provider.
- Likewise Software, which specializes in integration with Microsoft Active Directory. A source close to Likewise says the company is on the brink of profitability.
- Zenoss, a specialist in commercial open source network and systems management.
Missing Pieces
While promising, the Open Source Channel Alliance still has a few missing pieces to fill in. For starters, major open source CRM providers have not joined the organization. No SugarCRM? That ain’t sweet. MySQL also is missing from the party. Still, HP’s participation in the Open Source Channel Alliance’s first event speaks volumes about the growing open source IT channel.
No doubt, open source seems to be gaining traction in the IT channel. A few weeks after the Open Source Channel Alliance launched, The VAR Guy learned Tech Data was considering a similar open source distribution initiative. Officially, Tech Data has no comment but The VAR Guy hears the distributor is still working on an long-term open source strategy.
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The VAR Guy:
At this point after the Oracle acquisition of Sun, is it really surprising that MySQL is MIA? I don’t think any of us know how Oracle plans to position MySQL in its product portfolio.
-jef
[…] HP Joins Open Source Channel Alliance Party When the Open Source Channel Alliance — launched by Red Hat and Synnex — hosts its first conference for VARs and channel partners in late July, a surprise guest will be on hand: Hewlett-Packard. Here’s the scoop and the implications for channel partners. […]
Interesting that this event is held during OSCON? Do they have their own agenda? Is this an attempt at fragmentation?
Even MORE interesting is the “opensource alliance” uses CLOSED source technology for it’s registration. Hmmm.
JP: The VAR Guy doesn’t think the Open Source Channel Alliance is trying to fragment the market. Rather, the Open Source Channel Alliance is trying to raise awareness for open source in the IT channel. Generally speaking, that’s a good thing… right?
Your point about OSCA using closed source for registration is well-taken. However, let’s keep this in perspective. OSCA is hosting a small, half-day, regional show in South Carolina. Best Guess is that they simply leveraged a quick online registration system as part of a fast move to get registration going quickly.
So on both points, The VAR Guy is giving OSCA the benefit of the doubt.
@JP:
More to the point, is there a competing registration service provider you would recommend that runs an open source stack? Feel free to name drop. Completely open source web service companies are still few and far between. SaaS businesses using the AGPL and compliant with the Franklin Street Statement even rarer still. Here’s your chance to lift up a business that is doing it the right way and give them some attention.
-jef
Jef: The VAR Guy is at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. So at least for the next few days, he won’t be thinking about open source registration systems. Kidding aside, The VAR Guy will defer to readers. Has anyone heard a of complete registration service that’s totally open source??
By the way CompServ is holding a customer event on VDI with Red Hat and HP as sponsors. HP is already in the game when it comes to being open source friendly! HP and Red Hat make sense!
The VAR Guy:
While JP was being snarky, he does point to a bigger problem associated with the growing culture of online services development. As more and more of our needs both as private citizens and business interests are going to be met by web services businesses the open development methodology may not be transferring over into this new area of development.
Yes there is a very high likelihood that many of these businesses will be leveraging existing open source technology maybe even contributing to it through the open development process for technology they are consuming. But how many of those businesses are going to be adopting an open development model for their own service codebases that their users and customers directly interact with?
We are undergoing a cultural shift right now that might not be healthy for the open ecosystem long term. The new breed of developers, the web-centric SaaS developers, understand the immediate tangible benefits of consuming open code but its not clear they understand the less tangible long term benefits of using an open development process for their own work. That fact has to be bittersweet for many open development advocates. The problem is we really don’t have a strong vocal leader yet who seems to be willing and able to champion open development models in the SaaS space.
This is the sort of cultural shift that may require a generational change in leadership. I don’t think we can rely on the community’s established greybeards to be the most effective communicator about open SaaS development. And the younger luminaries all seem to be trying to build their own closed SaaS businesses in the short term.
The Franklin Street Statement is out now, as a rallying point, but its still not clear who will be an effective leader who can best help see its ideals adopted broadly in the SaaS development community.
-jef