I think this is the beginning of a beautiful symbiotic relationship

Remember the classic line by Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca,” "Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful symbiotic relationship."  Well, the line was “beautiful friendship,” but I’m making a point about open source technologies.

The point is that IT companies big and small “in all the world” exist in symbiosis with mutually satisfying relationships, whether we want to recognize it or not.

The smaller, newer, more agile, and perhaps more innovative vendors need the larger, more stable incumbents with their robust products and solutions applied to tried and true business functions, and the incumbents need the smaller, newer, startups for their new ideas. We each benefit from the other. Trying to spin this as survival of the fittest is faulty thinking and could very well stifle the innovations that will come from open source technologies.

What is BMC’s stance on open source engineering?

At BMC, we believe the open source approach is a critical and vital part of a high-tech, innovation-driven landscape.

We’re an active supporter of the open source community: We support and manage all the leading open source technologies, including Apache, JBOSS, and Linux, among others.

We’re a customer too. We use a large number of open source technologies within a number of our solutions.

We plan, on a regular basis, when to release parts or all of our solutions into the open source community, believing the open source players are one of a number of viable mechanisms for creating, extending, and strengthening the systems management solutions available to the market.

We look forward to the efforts of the Open Management Consortium being successful, and we look forward to exploring ways to engage with the member projects and companies in ways that benefit us all – beautiful friendships.

We will always have Paris by the bay. That is...if you come to BMCUSERWORLD in San Francisco, August 29 through September 1st, for five days of learning, networking and idea swapping. Visit http://www.bmc.com/userworld2006/ for details.

For more details on open source trends, including a snippet from a recent Forrester paper, visit http://open-management.com/2006/05/18/yes-bmc-agrees-that-we-exist-in-symbiosis/