April 8th, 2009
Any friends OK for open source?
The folks at Pentaho, trying to generate marketing momentum and buzz for their open source business intelligence suite, put out two press releases recently:
- A partnership with Groundwork Open Source integrating its software with the latter’s IT monitoring technology.
- A partnership to offer Pentaho ”on demand BI solutions” with Satyam of India.
One of these things is not like the other.
ZDNet has been writing about the scandal at Satyam for months. It is being called India’s Enron. An indictment against the Chairman and other top managers, opened this week, runs to 65,000 pages.
What’s left of Satyam will be auctioned next week. Among the reported bidders is Cognizant, which recently paid out $509,000 in back wages over an H1-B scandal – it was paying imported workers less than Americans. Zack’s considers Cognizant one of the good guys in its industry.
I need to repeat here that Pentaho has been accused of nothing, that I am making no accusations against them. I’m just asking whether there is such a thing as appearances. This Satyam scandal has been brewing for months, and Pentaho signs on the line which is dotted just as it explodes?
Anyone else find this just a little bit icky? Or am I out of line for mentioning it?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 04/08/09
