Red Hat's CEO at OSBC: The nature of true open-source innovation
Red Hat will be opening up OSBC with an implied slam on Novell and Microsoft. Interesting....
Jim Whitehurst is a quick study. Matthew Szulik delivered the opening keynote at the Open Source Business Conference 2007, while his successor, Jim Whitehurst, will be opening up OSBC 2008 (March 25-26, San Francisco).
Like Matthew before him, Jim's keynote promises to spark some fireworks. Here's the abstract I just received:
Open Source and True Innovation
Open Source is the driving force behind the true innovation that happens daily in the community. True open source innovation is what drives value. Hybrid open source strategies cause confusion and sub-par customer experiences.
In his keynote at the Open Source Business Conference, Red Hat President and CEO, Jim Whitehurst, will share his observations from his time with customers and partners around the world who put open source into real business practice. Whitehurst will discuss the drivers of why companies are considering open source for the long-term and why it is strategic to business objectives.
It remains to be seen whether Jim will be able to convey his thoughts as passionately and eloquently as Matthew did, but after talking with him once before and after reading through a few interviews he has delivered, I suspect the answer is "Yes."
With Red Hat opening the conference and Microsoft's Brad Smith giving the evening keynote (with many IT executives in between), it promises to be a killer show. Register now. If you want to try for a discount, ping me and I'll see what I can do. InfoWorld runs the event but sometimes they let me hand out a limited number of discounts.