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January 27, 2006
Open Source sausage meet
I arrived back home with a mixed bag of impressions from the "Open Source Meets Business" conference that took place in the German sausage town of Nürnberg. In all, I found the speakers sending some mixed messages as to how they view their use of and their role in Open Source. Here some quotes (translated from my written notes):
- Nürnberg local politician: "Open Source is a growth market", "Quick wins and strategic advantages"
- Large German bank: "We have no special strategy for Open source - it is - just - part of our normal IT strategy", "The OS community is a driver for new and innovative products", "When deciding to use Open Source, it comes down to the question of the right choice for a clearly defined situation", "Open Source can add even further complexity into an already complex environment"
- Another large German bank: "The community needs to do more to adapt Open Source to the needs of large enterprises"
- Yet another large German financial institution: "Our priority is running an efficient and economical IT infrastructure - we are not interested in ideological discussions [about community participation]"
And did you know, that each day, around 8 million of the famous Nürnberg sausages are produced in and around the city? You do now.
Posted by Matthew at January 27, 2006 07:43 PM