Azure “openness & interoperability” wins open ratification

The Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) has confirmed that Microsoft has joined the organisation as a contributor member. Redmond's open source protagonists have been apparently...
Rackspace acquires ObjectRocket open source MongoDB database as a service (DBaaS)

Rackspace has been on a shopping spree and made a move to expand its open cloud platform by acquiring ObjectRocket, a MongoDB database as a service (DBaaS) provider. NOTE: MongoDB (from "humongous") is a scalable, high-performance, open source NoSQL database written in C++ and...
Hold on please caller, open source telephony is calling

Two days walking around the GSMA's Mobile World Congress exhibition in Barcelona is hard work on the feet, the eyes and ears plus also the brain too. It's a sensory overload of the great and the good from the mobile universe all crammed into eight enormous halls to shake hands and exchange branded...
Do we need an open source GPS alternative?

Although occasionally infuriating around roundabouts and new developments, we have placed an inordinate amount of faith in Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites as they exist for in-car and/or smartphone usage. So why would we need an open source alternative? Well the GPS system was created...
Rackspace Python IP master fights patent trolls

Open cloud company Rackspace has appointed an open source industry guru to its VP of intellectual property position. While the Computer Weekly Open Source Insider blog does not typically cover appointments, Van Lindberg (no missing first name) has been named by the American Bar Association Journal...
Apache snapshots hunted down

Recovery-as-a-Service in open cloud country is on the way. Vision Solutions has taken its replication and disaster recovery services into sharper open computing territory by adding a Recovery-as-a-Service (RaaS) option to Apache CloudStack as well as Citrix CloudPlatform. NOTE:...
Ferrari-styled titanium & sapphire Android handset

What do you give the open source enthusiast who has everything? You could start with one of Vertu's handsets which cost in the region of £6,994 in the case of the firm's latest Vertu Ti which has been built with the Android mobile operating system on...
Robotic latex tentacle code open sourced, at last!

The majority of robotic latex tentacle users have, up until this point, had to make do with locked in proprietary software code to power their mechanical rubber appendages. Users have had no other option than to opt for a pre-boxed heavily corporate-registered code base. Many who want to be able...
Student rookies driving open source in banking

A recent study carried out by IT analyst firm Forrester (sponsored by Black Duck) of 542 developers has suggested that as many as 92 percent of banks have been using open source software (OSS) to develop mobile apps. Although this PR-driven claim should arguably have been phrased -- " 92 percent...
An open source games editor everyone can use?

Independent developer Makslane Rodrigues has released Game Editor, a free and open source cross platform game creation application. What does cross platform mean to the true open source evangelist? It's the Windows, Windows Mobile, iPad, iPhone, Mac...