July 5th, 2006
Does it matter where open source firms are based?
I
t shouldn’t. But it does.
Where a company is based determines its outlook. That’s where its employment base is. That’s whose newspapers its executives read.
Mark Asay, now with Alfresco Software, told the OSBC Europe conference this week that open source companies are being pushed to locate in Silicon Valley, and they should resist that pressure.
An article on the speech by Computer Business Review Online offers the example of JBOSS, which was based in Atlanta because that’s where founder Marc Fleury was living at the time. It noted that Fleury is a native of France, and technically could have launched there as well.
This leads me to a question. Would JBOSS have been likely to merge with RedHat if it were in France? RedHat is based in Raleigh, with offices in Boston, and Fleury chose the buy-out instead of going public earlier this year.
What kind of deal would JBOSS have made if it were based in France? What if it had been in San Jose?
I will argue that it would be a different deal. Where you stand does depend on where you sit. So if Silicon Valley were not home to so many well-funded VCs, how would America be doing in open source?
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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| 07/05/06
