ECOSYSTEMS

Engineers. marketers, managers, and sales reps met in Salt Lake City, Utah for Novell’s annual Brainshare conference. This year’s event emphasized virtualization, identity management, and interoperability (the code word for the Microsoft deal). As I walked the halls, I kept hearing the word “ecosystem.” It was scripted for everyone, from Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian down to the Novell employees in the booths. Novell seems interested in making a statement by using the term “ecosystem” instead of “community.” Their own community of users and developers has existed for over 20 years, and they want their community – I mean, ecosystem – to work closely with the open source community, but they are also aware that they aren’t the only player in the server room, and they want to be in a position to reach out to groups who may not fit so well with the open source definition of “community.”