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Can Marten Mickos capture open source lightning in a bottle — twice? He previously built MySQL into an estimated $100 million open source database company that Sun ultimately acquired for $1 billion. Now, Mickos is stepping into the CEO role at Eucalyptus Systems, the open-source cloud platform provider. Here’s what Mickos has to say about his new position, and the implications for cloud partners.

Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian and the company’s executive team are developing a managed services partner strategy and SaaS licensing models that I think will surface in the second half of 2010. Here are the details.

Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian and Chief Marketing Officer John Dragoon offered me a financial and partner progress report on March 22. Here’s a recap.

Novell BrainShare started March 21 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The company is gradually winning back channel partners like VARs and systems integrators, thanks to SUSE Linux. But so far, Novell doesn't seem to have a compelling story for the fastest growing portion of the channel -- managed services providers (MSPs). The big question: Do MSPs care about Novell?

I'm set to interview Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian and Chief Marketing Officer/Channel Chief John Dragoon at the Novell BrainShare conference in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 22. Here are five key questions for Hovsepian and Dragoon, with the emphasis on the future of Novell and SUSE Linux.

Novell’s board rejected an unsolicited $2 billion takeover bid from Elliott Associates, a hedge fund that wants to swallow SUSE Linux and Novell’s other core products. Novell’s rejection of the bid, announced March 20, answers some questions but raises others on the eve of BrainShare, the company’s big customer and partner event in Salt Lake City, Utah. Now the twist: Novell’s board essentially wrote an open letter to other potential suitors.

As the big Novell BrainShare conference gets set to start on March 21, Novell’s board of directors is considering an unsolicited offer for the company. But here’s the twist: More software developers seem to be flocking to Novell’s SUSE Linux platform — at a time when Novell’s ownership status could potentially change. Here’s why.

For the second time in recent weeks, hosted unified communications is earning some headlines. But this time, the news involves an open source initiative between Open-Xchange (an open source email company) and 4PSA (a VoIP and cloud unified communications specialist). Here 's the story.

Alfresco Software, which specializes in open source enterprise content management, says it more than doubled its partner network in 2009. But here’s the really interesting part: Alfresco partners are earning $10 to $15 worth of services for every dollar of Alfresco Enterprise subscriptions sold. Here are the details.

Elliott Associates, the hedge fund that’s seeking to acquire Novell and SUSE Linux, is denying a report that it plans to break up Novell and sell off the pieces. Hmmm… But I still wonder: Will Novell and Elliott Associates reach a buyout agreement in time for Novell BrainShare? Here's some speculation.

It’s been less than a month since VMware officially acquired Zimbra -- the open source email platform -- from Yahoo. But VMware isn’t standing still. Jim Morrisroe, VP and GM of VMware’s Zimbra division, says the company is preparing software appliances that combine virtualization with Zimbra. They should arrive by Q2 2010. Here are the details and the implications.

Red Hat already focuses on Linux, JBoss middleware and virtualization. But there are multiple signs the open source company will make a business intelligence move soon. And Red Hat’s move could involve either Jaspersoft or EnterpriseDB — or both. Here's why.

Parallels, the virtualization and cloud enabler, has officially announced they’re supporting Chrome OS, Google's Linux distribution. Here are the implications for corporate customers, consumers and partners.

Digium and Asterisk, the open source IP PBX platform, just received a major vote of confidence from a key partner in the unified communications market. Synnex Corp., a distributor that supplies more than 15,000 resellers in North America, has agreed to promote Digium’s Switchvox to its partner base. Here are the implications for Digium.

Wyse Technology, the prominent thin client company, is preparing a “completely new product in the consumer and enterprise space” that leverages Ubuntu Linux, The VAR Guy has learned. Here are some preliminary details about the emerging Wyse-Ubuntu effort, and the implications for Canonical and the thin client computing market.

Canonical wants Ubuntu Linux to run on a range of devices — from mobile Internet devices all the way up to high-end servers and cloud systems. But there are two markets where Canonical has no plans to push Ubuntu. Here they are.

When the Open Source Business Conference starts March 17 in San Francisco, The VAR Guy will be watching and listening closely for signs of corporate open source momentum from upstarts like Canonical and giants like Microsoft, Oracle and even SAP. Yes, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Here are five trends to anticipate at the OSBC conference.

Canonical’s CEO crown officially transitioned from Mark Shuttleworth to Jane Silber on March 1. During a phone discussion with The VAR Guy yesterday, Silber shared her top priorities for Canonical and Ubuntu. She also disclosed plans to make another key executive hire at Canonical. And, Silber shared some views on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), the cloud — and the potential sale of Linux rival Novell to a hedge fund. Here’s a recap.

A hedge fund has offered to acquire Novell, developer of SUSE Linux, for $1.8 billion. Moments ago, Novell confirmed that it plans to review the unsolicited buyout offer. Now, Wall Street pundits wonder if folks like Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle or SAP will step in and offer a higher bid for Novell. Here’s the chatter so far.

In preparation for the Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) release, Canonical is reaching out to independent software vendors (ISVs). In fact, Canonical says there are 10 reasons why developers should embrace Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition, and nine reasons why they should support support Ubuntu 10.04 Server Edition. Here the are.