OStatic

The financial services market is still a largely uncharted region for open source software. Sure, there are several Exchanges around the globe that use Linux to power their operations, but the minds, the people, and the currency that bring life to the trading floors don't operate solely on a patch of real estate in New York, London or Hong Kong. Marketcetera is one of the first open source software vendors to blaze a trail in this industry, with its open source trading platform catering to buy side and algorithmic trading.

Tackling a new market often necessitates a new way of thinking and looking at problems, but having experienced advisors onboard is still crucial to successfully navigate the unfamiliar territory -- for the insight they give, and the assurance their presence can instill in potential customers. This is only one of the reasons Marketcetera is welcoming Larry Stefonic to its advisory board. Stefonic is no stranger to the software industry, having co-founded the yaSSL project, an open source internet security suite, holding management positions at Centure Software, Raima Corporation and recently serving as the executive vice president of sales at MySQL AB.

I can safely say when I covered the speculation that IBM and Sun were wrapping up the finer points of the acquisition Friday, I figured that if there was anything left to say come Monday, it would deal with idiosyncracies of the agreed-upon terms. Even though the announcement is imminent reports were not officially sanctioned by IBM or Sun, there was no reason to believe the sources were dishonest about the information they gave. It still doesn't seem there was dishonesty, or that these sources made wildly off-base assumptions about what was to come. It seemed as though IBM's purchase of Sun Microsystems was set to proceed, until late Saturday evening, when IBM and Sun broke off negotiations, according to Bloomberg.

There had been much debate about how an IBM acquisition would affect Sun's open source efforts. As those questions move even further into the hypothetical realm, far more troubling questions loom about Sun's next potential buyer -- or its choice to weather the storm on its own.

According to the New York Times and Bloomberg, IBM's purchase of Sun Microsystems is imminent. The official announcement and terms of the acquisition will most likely be made public on Monday, but a late in the day announcement hasn't been ruled out. It's estimated that the purchase will cost IBM nearly $7 billion.

There's been much speculation and discussion both here at OStatic and elsewhere about what this means for Sun and its open source projects.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that IBM is currently in talks to purchase Sun Microsystems. The acquisition is not a foregone conclusion, due in part to the very different corporate cultures in the companies. Some believe this tension will ultimately help both companies succeed, if they can just get through the talks.

The acquisition could take place as early as this week, and it is speculated that IBM could pay over $6.5 billion for Sun. Sun's recent financials have been more than a little disappointing, and this purchase would take a toll on IBM's profits in the short term. Business isn't solely about the short term, however, and I can't help but agree with the WSJ, CNet's Matt Asay, and at least a few of those involved in the talks that this acquisition would be a positive one for IBM, Sun, and open source in general.

The Marketcetera team is as aware as the rest of us that economic changes are coming fast and furious, and that open source software can have an impact on a company's -- or individual's -- financial future. Honestly, one could say Marketcetera is twice as aware of open source software's financial potential.

Today, Marketcetera released the first full production release of its open source automated trading platform. Aimed at hedge fund managers, traders, brokers and dealers, the system is standardized, open, scalable and modular. This, says Marketcetera CEO Graham Miller, offers users faster deployments, better integration, and the ability to customize everything from the public APIs to data models.

According to The Register, Sun plans on laying off between 15-18% of its workforce (an estimated 5,000-6,000 positions) and restructuring itself into three major divisions, thanks to earlier periods of slowed growth (or losses) and the already bleak economic picture.

Sun's President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz says that this is a decisive action in the face of the economy, and that these cuts should facilitate the delivery of key open source platform innovations, including MySQL. In his corporate blog, however, Schwartz drops a few hints about other projects, such as OpenOffice.

Though I'm not as guilty of chronically changing content management/blogging software as I am of switching up Linux distributions, I've used more than a few in my day. I began using WordPress in its 1.x days, and moved through Drupal, Mambo, and Joomla in a quest to see what really worked best for my situation.

A year and a half ago, I ended up returning to -- and staying with -- WordPress. The software was nicely polished, simple to modify and configure on a superficial level (and slightly more complex but not frustratingly so for deeper changes), and third party plugins were available that were useful and worked flawlessly (or at least, without show stopping errors).

The WordPress 2.5 release introduced a very different layout and new features, and the 2.7 beta shows the team shaking it up again. In this release, WordPress is lending a hand to (lazy? Overbooked?) bloggers everywhere.

Yesterday Computerworld reported that MySQL cofounder and lead engineer David Axmark has resigned from Sun Microsystems. Axmark indicated that he felt he would be better off in smaller organizations and working with MySQL and Sun on a less formal basis.

Axmark's involvement with MySQL has included heading the engineering, internal IT, and community relations efforts of the project. Since January, when Sun purchased MySQL, Axmark has been working mostly with the press and in community relations.