OStatic

As OStatic's own Sam Dean puts it, Business Intelligence (BI) applications are used to better understand historical, current and future aspects of business operations. Open source BI company Jaspersoft released two new editions of its Java reporting tool JasperReports Pro today that include a whole slew of new features and upgrades, so if you've been considering giving business intelligence software a try, now might be a good time to start.

New features in JasperReports Professional include:

?Boxee raises $6 million, announces other deals. The company behind the well-liked open source media center app is on a roll.

Investor reveals secret to $1.6 billion in open source success. VC Peter Fenton has spurred on four big open-source sales--JBoss ($350 million), Zimbra ($350 million), XenSource ($500 million), and SpringSource ($420 million).

If you have a proprietary partner is it still open source? Jaspersoft and Talend are teaming with two proprietary vendors to deliver a business intelligence solution for clouds.

Hands on with SUSE Studio. Novell's service allows you to create your own Linux distro respin using nothing more than a web browser.

Consider Linux for secure online banking. Because it isn't a big target for hackers, and for other reasons, it's an ideal platform.

A Moblin netbook by this fall? The first netbook pre-installed with the Moblin v2 operating system technology may reach market in October--on Asus' Seashell system.

It looks like Jaspersoft is making good use of the funding it received a few months ago. The business intelligence (BI) software maker has announced a major update to its Community Edition with new features designed to help customers better analyze data, easily create user-friendly reports, and more.

Jaspersoft Community Edition 3.5 new features include:

Earlier this week I wrote about ways museums are turning to open source software as one way to deal with declining attendance and lack of funding to cover operational costs. Of course, there's more to running a nonprofit organization than managing collections or scheduling volunteers to run exhibits.

Web-based open source constituent management solution Orange Leap (CMS) helps nonprofits maintain and manage relationships with the patrons, sponsors, and community members whose donations help keep their doors open.

At OSCON last year, Jaspersoft revealed that work was underway to re-vamp JasperForge, its developer community platform. Jaspersoft's goal was to ensure that the Forge could support its community into the future by integrating new collaboration and networking tools, while enhancing the Forge's existing features.

Today, Jaspersoft has announced that the JasperForge upgrade has moved into high gear, with all of its new features and enhancements in place and operational.

While frugality isn't by any means the only reason a business should consider open source software, it would be foolish to think that the current economic situation isn't making it more attractive to companies. There is often, however, an imposing barrier standing in the way of all-out adoption. The mythical learning curve involved in moving to open source isn't half so steep or intimidating as that first step -- where do we go, what applications are best for us, and how do we put it all together and make it all work?

This week, Red Hat and IT services distribution provider, SYNNEX, announced the formation of the Open Source Channel Alliance. The Alliance's aim is to help value-added resellers and solutions providers deliver all the benefits of open source applications to their customers.

Open source business intelligence (BI) company Jaspersoft and application performance monitoring software vendor Hyperic announced today a deepening of their ongoing relationship. JasperServer Professional Edition will be embedded in the new Hyperic Operations IQ to give IT teams an in-depth look at metrics and service levels.

Before dismissing the news as just another corporate partnership, consider that these kinds of match-ups are the very thing software vendors are likely to begin offering as companies get more serious about monitoring the bottom line.

The Open Source Alliance (OSA) published its Annual Predictions Survey this week. It serves up the opinions of business leaders about Obama's impact on IT, where they think the technology market is headed, and why it's a bad idea to put projects on hold until the economy turns around.

The survey asked the CEOs of several companies around the world to look ahead at various issues near and dear to the hearts of the people within the tech sector and open source community. Respondents were asked to predict one software winner and loser in the year ahead, and also think about what kinds of business models are likely to emerge in the coming months.