Red Hat Invests In Open Source Business Intelligence Company
The delicate dance between Red Hat Enterprise Linux and open source application providers continues. The latest example: Red Hat is among the latest investors in Jaspersoft, which specializes in open source business intelligence. Here's the scoop, from The VAR Guy:
This week Jaspersoft is expected to announce:
This week Jaspersoft is expected to announce:
The delicate dance between Red Hat Enterprise Linux and open source application providers continues. The latest example: Red Hat is among the latest investors in Jaspersoft, which specializes in open source business intelligence. Here’s the scoop, from The VAR Guy:
This week Jaspersoft is expected to announce:
- $12.5 million in new funding, led by Adams Street Partners and Red Hat later this week.
- An upgrade to the Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite v3 Community and Professional Editions. The new release, according to a spokeswoman, includes advanced charting and visualization capabilities that supplement the dynamic dashboards and interactive Web 2.0 interfaces introduced earlier this year.
Of course, The VAR Guy is preoccupied with four trends here. They are:
- The emerging open source channel: Watch for Red Hat and Jaspersoft to aggressively engage solutions providers and integrators. Also, Jaspersoft will face channel competition from Pentaho, another open source BI company. As The VAR Guy has reported, Pentaho recently hired SugarCRM veteran Lars Nordwall to build the company’s partner program.
- The channel shift from Linux to open source applications: Frankly, customers don’t buy operating systems. They buy applications. Red Hat and Novell know this, and they are engaged in a race to recruit more and more ISVs (independent software vendors).
- The race for higher-margin engagements: Selling file and print servers is old news. In stark contrast, solutions providers that specialize in Red Hat JBoss Middleware can make more than $10 in consulting fees for every $1 in software fees they generate. The VAR Guy expects to see similar high-margin opportunities with open soruce business intelligence.
- Continued venture investments in open source: This is an obvious angle. Some folks say open source is immune to the recession. The VAR Guy disagrees. Fact is, many open source companies are cutting their cash burn rate because they’re worried about revenue growth. Still, it’s good to see Red Hat and Adams Street Partners opening their wallets to push open source applications forward. The IT channel will surely follow suit.
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Spell check – #4
Our resident blogger is a little busy digging his flight out of a snow storm in Ottawa. Spell check coming after he puts down the shovel.
Nice scoop, VAR Guy. Do you expect Red Hat to buy Jasper?
Darwin: You sound smarter than The VAR Guy. Our resident blogger doesn’t think Red Hat will buy Jaspersoft. But The VAR Guy doesn’t exactly have a clear crystal ball on this one.
“Watch for Red Hat and Jaspersoft to aggressively engage solutions providers and integrators.”
When you see the word ‘aggressive’ used expect nothing to happen is the general rule.
“Frankly, customers don’t buy operating systems. They buy applications. Red Hat and Novell know this, and they are engaged in a race to recruit more and more ISVs (independent software vendors).”
Ahhhhh, if only it were that simple. The quality of the OS, and the tools available, dictate the quality and depth of applications you will ultimately get. ISVs are also only truly interested in platforms where this process is pain-free and where the usage and size of any potential market makes it worthwhile. Trying to sign up ISVs ‘aggressively’ without paying attention to this is putting the cart before the horse. Even if you do get the horse before the cart, it’s not going to pull if it doesn’t like it.
“Selling file and print servers is old news.”
Microsoft makes an awful lot out of it, and as a seller of an OS with an interest in its future it is an area where increased competition and encroachment is bad news for Red Hat whatever they do with JBoss. File and print servers have an awful habit of being used for other things if it’s on offer. Ignoring this is bad news long-term for Red Hat.
This will help open source boost its leverage.