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The new Intel gets open source mojo with SpikeSource

This is important for open source businesses, because once they jump through the hoops your wares are on a level playing field with the big boys, and enterprises are told to trust you.
Written by Dana Blankenhorn, Inactive

The biggest business story of the year may be the transformation of Intel from a tech-driven chipmaker to a marketing-driven products-and-services company.

I have talked about this with regard to health care but the transformation is more far-ranging than that.

Take the field of software, where Intel is working with SpikeSource to "build a large scaled business around enabling the long tail of ISVs to reach the mass market."

That's the way SpikeSource CEO Kim Polese (above, from Wikimedia) puts it. (She is fluent in both buzzword and English.)

What she's talking about is an ongoing effort to wrap Intel's brand around a "certification" program powered by SpikeSource.

This is important for open source businesses, because once you jump through the hoops your wares are on a level playing field with the big boys, and enterprises are told to trust you.

"Open source is becoming software," just as a decade ago ecommerce was becoming commerce, she explained. Everyone is mixed source.

Every company can focus on the value of collaboration. Pure open source players are becoming thin on the ground.

Why is Intel doing this? "They want to enable the broad software vendors on the Intel platform," said Polese.

Translation. They're making a market, taking a cut, and learning who is doing what, in a granular way, from the ground up.

The key to this story is that Intel is still in a learning mode, still gathering INTELligence, if you will. Whether they can act on this in a variety of marketplaces remains an open question.

I would hesitate to bet against them. They are moving far more methodically than before, with far more data, and far more stealth.

By the time anyone notices the transformation, it will be complete.

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