SynApps The Open Source and Gadget blog

Sun has acquired Q-Layer, a Belgian company that provides automation tools for cloud offerings. In the ongoing battle for control of the cloud API this brings Sun one step closer to creating a unique "Open Cloud" eco-system.  Read more ...

In "Cloud computing: Will the financial geeks give it a boost?" ZDNet's Larry Dignan uses a recent Forrester report to help you explain the economies of SaaS / Cloud computing - to your CFO.

The economies of scale, the Open Source-ness, dedicated specialists, boilerplate hardware etc. enable service providers come out with SaaS offerings at competitive prices. Read more ...

"Wild times", as Likewise's Barry Crist starts his monthly newsletter "Open Source in Today's Economic Climate", we sure have. As all purses are being locked down we are happily creating the next recession ourselves, as usual. US VC firms are now famous for encouraging their portfolio companies to finally learn how to fire people (and how not to).

Can there winners of this crisis? Are there ways to avoid becoming a loser? Read more ...

MacRuby is the name of a fledgling little technology that will surely bring me a lot of fun. MacRuby is a Ruby implementation built directly on top of Objective-C, which should provide us with a good integration of the two worlds at a very slim performance cost. As both a Mac and Ruby fan I'm very excited about this, so, I urge everyone interested to give it a spin:

The curious may read an enlightening tutorial here: http://developer.apple.com/mac/articles/scriptingautomation/cocoaappswit...

The projects homepage is:
http://www.macruby.org

BusinessWeek has a good one on making money and growing fast in the open source world, titled "Open Source: An Open Question for Red Hat and Others". The general theme is: Open Source companies have a tough time growing fast and making profits - with RedHat and Novell as examples - altough "Software supplier Red Hat is racking up growth figures that much of techdom might envy. Sales rose 32%, to $157 million, in the quarter ended May 31, and profits climbed a respectable 7%.". Read more ...

It is what is is. Some things can only be changed by changing the players. Germany lost the EU  Football (some call it soccer) cup against Spain in the finals tonight, Spain was simply better. Spain won for the first time since 1964 - the year I was born and that is definately a loooong time ago. Things have changed - after a long time. Viva España.

Same for Microsoft. A lot of changes ahead for the software business: Internet, Open Source, and Software as a Service. Open-Xchange is the new kids on the block with some serious stuff. Check out Slashdot and ZDNet for some insight.

The "Wilamette Week Online" has a great piece from someone who is unhappy that city government of Portland seems to have a tendency to choose the MOST expensive option, also when choosing its mail system. This is just one on a litany of things that this city government is wasting money on. There are a plethora of stories on governments wasting money. Read more ...

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." ... Bucky Fuller once said.

You could say that this is the guiding principle for why OX does SaaS and Open Source. Read more at Enterprise Open Source Magazine...