Open Source Gold Rush for Venture Investment or the Next Bust?Business Editors/High-Tech Writers Open Source Business Conference 2004 SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 11, 2004 Leading Venture Investors Reveal Opportunities and Disclose Risks at Open Source Business Conference March 16-17 in San Francisco Open Source Business Conference 2004, the premier event for open source software and business, today announced the final line up of venture capital and investment speakers for the March 16 and 17 conference being held at the West St. Francis Hotel The Westin St. Francis is a luxury hotel in the Union Square district of San Francisco, California. The hotel opened on March 21, 1904. The interior was destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake but the structure survived and the hotel re-opened in late 1907. in San Francisco. Two leading venture capital luminaries are delivering keynote speeches. On March 16, Kevin Harvey, general partner at Benchmark Capital, speaks on emerging business models and open source. On March 17, Ray Lane, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the former president of Oracle Corporation, speaks on the macro-economic impact of open source. The venture capital community is taking a second look at opportunities with companies focused on open source software as the foundation for high-growth businesses. In the late 1990s, more than $200 million alone flooded into the coffers of just a handful of Linux companies. At its peak, Red Hat boasted a market capitalization of more than $20 billion and VA Linux still holds the opening-day record for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) The first time a company offers shares of stock to the public. While not a computer term per se, many founders, employees and insiders of computer companies have found this acronym more exciting than any tech term they ever heard. share price increase -- more than 700 percent. The past year has seen a return of venture investment around companies in open source at valuations not seen since the bubble days. Indeed, Forbes magazine in February asked "Is Open Source the best investment opportunity in 2004?" Already, many start-ups targeting open source markets are benefiting from the new investment climate. Recent examples include JBoss, makers of web server software, who attracted $10 million from Accel Partners and Matrix. Scalix, built around original HP technology for mail and messaging software that runs on Linux, raised $13 million from Mayfield and NEA NEA abbr. 1. National Education Association 2. National Endowment for the Arts NEA (US) n abbr (= National Education Association) → Verband für das Erziehungswesen . MySQL, an open source database company, received $19.5 million in a round led by Benchmark Capital. All of these portfolio company examples will also be speaking at OSBC OSBC Open Source Business Conference OSBC One Stop Business Center . At OSBC 2004, venture speakers and panel sessions will examine innovation, business models, growth areas and risks in open source investment and will feature a session where start-up CEOs pitch their firms in real-time to venture investors. Among the venture capital speakers participating at OSBC 2004 are: Accel Partners: Peter Fenton Azure Capital: Larry Augustin (founding CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of VA Linux) Benchmark Capital: Kevin Harvey Fidelity Ventures: Dave Power Greylock Partners: Aneel Buhsri Hummer Winblad: Mitchell Kertzman Index Ventures: Danny Rimer rim·er n. Variant of rhymer. Intel Capital: Pradeep Tagare InterWest Partners: Steve Bowsher Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers: Ray Lane, Murugan Pal Mayfield: Allen Morgan NEA: Stewart Alsop Sierra Ventures: Tim Guleri Sponsors Sponsors of Open Source Business Conference 2004 include Boston Consulting Group, Computer Associates, Finnegan Henderson, Gluecode Software, Groundwork Open Source Solutions, HP, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Intel, Linux Networx, Metrowerks, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, OSAIA OSAIA Open Source and Industry Alliance , Sendmail, SGI (SGI, Sunnyvale, CA, www.sgi.com) A manufacturer of workstations and servers, founded in 1982 by Jim Clark. The company was founded as Silicon Graphics, Inc., but changed to its acronym in 1999. , Summit Law Group, VERITAS and Wind River Systems. Media sponsors include Business 2.0, Fortune, InformationWeek, Optimize, O'Reilly, OSDN OSDN Open Source Development Network OSDN Open Source Developer Network , RedHerring, San Francisco Chronicle The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young.[2] The paper grew along with San Francisco to become the largest circulation newspaper on the West Coast of the , SDForum and ZDNet. About Open Source Business Conference The Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), the premier event for open source and business, is the leading independent forum for addressing the business, legal and financial issues facing technology vendors and organizations deploying open source software. OSBC 2004 will be held March 16-17, in San Francisco at the Westin St. Francis. View details and register at www.osbc2004.com. Open Source Business Conference is a trademark of Genus Group LLC. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Third party marks and brands are the property of their respective holders. |
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