Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2010/12/24/2011_and_open_source/

2011: The year open source (really) goes capitalist

Anyone can play guitar. Or open source

By Matt Asay

Posted in Software, 24th December 2010 00:00 GMT

Open...and Shut If 2010 was the year that taught open source "how to disappear completely," 2011 will be the year we're reminded that "anyone can play guitar"…or open source. At present, open source is de rigueur with the underdog class, those vendors seeking to challenge incumbents like Apple and Oracle.

But open source will take center stage with industry leaders in 2011, as it already has in the mobile battlefield with Google's Android, much to Apple's chagrin. It's not just about using open source to gain market share. It's also a matter of using open source to keep regulators at bay. As Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco rightly points out, open source saved mobile telecom operators from net neutrality regulations. The FCC decided that "meaningful recent moves toward openness" largely obviated the need for more regulation. That's a message that even the stodgiest of proprietary players will want to mimic.

Open source, however, is more art than science. It's a non-trivial task to build and sustain communities, which is why in 2011 we'll see the pace of open source M&A increase. Who is likely to be bought? Cloudera, Riptano, and other companies playing in the fast-moving "Big Data" and cloud infrastructure markets. I suspect we'll also see the emergence of a new crop of open-source mobile companies that will be born in 2011, and a few of which will get bought.

Who won't get bought in 2011? Novell, thankfully, but I wouldn't rule out an acquisition of Attachmate's SUSE asset. In fact, I think it's probable. I also doubt we'll see the buy-out of open-source vendors playing in old markets. Given that open source is no longer a differentiator, M&A interest will be in disruptive business models, focused on new markets. We should expect to see some veteran open-source companies reinvent themselves in 2011 to take advantage of this and, surprisingly, a few of them will actually succeed.

Microsoft: a rare foray into (gasp!) standards

Speaking of old dogs learning new tricks, while Microsoft's Windows and Office businesses continue to run at full steam, Microsoft recognizes it needs an Act III as it comes under withering competition from a variety of vendors.

Unsurprisingly, open source and open standards will play a key part in Microsoft's 2011 arsenal, but particularly open standards like HTML5.

Microsoft, finally recognizing that it is a true underdog in everything but desktop operating systems and productivity suites, is about the discover the "Interoperability Imperative." This doesn't mean the company is suddenly going to develop a crush for Linux, but rather that it will seek to shore up its fading browser fortunes, and close the mobile app gap, with HTML5 support.

Mind you, I'm not referring to Microsoft's traditional (cue devilish laugh) support for standards, which usually involves skewing the standards to promote its own technologies (OOXML, anyone?), but real support for true interoperability.

Microsoft's first foray into wacky world of playing nicely comes with its Firefox plugin for H.264 video. H.264 is, for better or for worse, the closest thing we have to a standard codec for HTML5, and Microsoft just plugged Firefox's lack of built-in support for the codec. Has Microsoft gone soft in the head? No. It finally recognizes that the world no longer revolves around it, and that it must therefore embrace an unfettered web. At least for now.

If Microsoft can use HTML5 and other means to breathe new life into its still stunted Windows Phone 7 and wilting Internet Explorer market share, it can and will. Microsoft used to be king of developers, but the big apps like Netflix have turned to open source and open standards to get their products out the door fast.

Microsoft's fettering of the web must wait until positive momentum is established.

The future of cloud…gets cloudier?

One area that Microsoft will do well in 2011, but against a backdrop of serious competition, is the cloud. Azure doesn't get the press, but with so many "Microsoft shops" out there, Microsoft will do well.

But so will will the open-source crowd. In 2011 many more CIOs will jump into private clouds…and will quickly discover that they're going about it all wrong, as Forrester's James Staten speculates. But this is a good thing, he reasons, because " through this failure [CIOs] will learn what it really takes to operate a cloud environment." This, in turn, should lead them toward public cloud providers like Amazon or hosted private cloud providers. Either way, open source wins, because both sets of clouds are largely open source-driven.

Indeed, the shift to hybrid clouds (i.e., hosted private) should benefit Rackspace's OpenStack project, which I expect to get serious adoption in 2011. But I also see Red Hat continuing to grow from strength to strength due to its beachhead in virtualization. As Red Hat grows, we're going to see its competition with VMware intensify, with the two companies snapping up complementary cloud and virtualization technologies - much of it open source - to compete.

Conclusion

Think of 2010 as the set-up play for a bruising 2011, when furious jockeying will take place to position companies to rule the cloud. More than ever before, open source will be the common element fueling this competition. Now that we finally understand key open source values - building community and low-cost complements to hosted service offerings - we're ready for a new age of open-source capitalism.

It all starts in 2011. ®

Matt Asay is senior vice president of business development at Strobe, a startup that offers an open source framework for building mobile apps. He was formerly chief operating officer of Ubuntu commercial operation Canonical. With more than a decade spent in open source, Asay served as Alfreso's general manager for the Americas and vice president of business development, and he helped put Novell on its open-source track. Asay is an emeritus board member of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). His column, Open...and Shut, appears every Friday on The Register.