News related to SBAS (OA):
For immediate release
December 1st, 1999
General and Press Inquiries: Investor Inquiries:
Ray Evans
805 886-5733
revans@openave.com
Doug Warren
508 208-8691
dwarren@openave.com
OpenAvenue to Enable Next Wave Of Open Source Acceptance
New Firm Announces Management Team with Extensive Track Record
Scotts Valley, CA -- Andrew Brown, president of CounterPoint Capital Management, L.L.C. and member of
OpenAvenue's board of directors, today announced that OpenAvenue has completed formation of its management
team and is now in its first round of post-incubation private placement financing. Created in July 1999, OpenAvenue
is a privately-held, Web-based company specializing in the hosting, management, and distribution of collaborative
software development projects. OpenAvenue provides a global collaborative infrastructure to aggregate the
worldwide inventory of code, knowledge and expertise to support the evolution of community-based, open-source
development.
OpenAvenue Management Team
The OpenAvenue management team is led by Paul Hessinger, CEO and chairman of the board. Hessinger has more
than 25 years of industry experience, most recently as executive technology counsel to Andrew "Flip" Filipowski,
CEO of PLATINUM technology, inc. Hessinger has also held executive positions at Computer Task Group,
BMW/Softlab, Dynasty Technologies, and KnowledgeWare. Doug Warren, executive vice president of operations
and CFO, joins OpenAvenue from ONTOS, where he was president. Earlier, he was CFO and acting general
manager of Business Software Technology (acquired by LEGENT Corporation). Jayson Minard, executive vice
president and CTO, is the co-founder and technical visionary of OpenAvenue's collaborative infrastructure. Minard
has held senior positions at Novell and Inprise, where he was chief architect for the JBuilder™ project. Ray Evans,
executive vice president of marketing, was a key participant in PLATINUM technology's successful launch of the
industry's first infrastructure solution for application development. Jeffrey Fredrick is vice president of engineering
and an OpenAvenue co-founder. Fredrick held management positions at AlphaBlox and Inprise, where he was a
founding member of the JBuilder team.
OpenAvenue and The Next Wave of Open Source Acceptance
In its August 1999 Bulletin, "Open Source Software," International Data Corp. stated that, "Large corporations are
waking up to the enormous benefits of open source… Especially for infrastructure software, the world will become a
safer place for computer users."
The OpenAvenue portal provides an infrastructure of productivity tools and services around a core of hosted
content to facilitate collaborative effort among a worldwide community of developers. Software content is made
available by open-source authors, shareware developers, freeware contributors, independent software vendors
(ISVs) and IT consulting organizations with applications that can benefit from community participation.
"The 'why' of open source has been proven by the commercial acceptance of a few high profile programs such as
Linux, Apache, and Perl," stated Hessinger. "What's been missing is the infrastructure that can turn the process of
open-source software development into a reliable, scaleable platform." Hessinger continued, "We believe
OpenAvenue provides the 'how' to enable the 'Open Industry' - the rapidly growing community of developers,
owners, and users of publicly-developed software, including open-source, shareware, and freeware, as well as
emerging hybrids of open-source components of commercial programs."
According to Adrian Bowles, industry analyst and president of Business Technology Network, "The next challenge
for the open-source model is to cross the chasm that currently separates community-based development from the
larger world of corporate software developers. Opensourcing the development of non-proprietary components to an
outside pool of talent makes good business sense if there is an infrastructure in place to mitigate the risk." Bowles
concluded, "OpenAvenue's model is squarely aimed at providing the means to manage these projects in a way that
makes them acceptable to the corporate community."
About Open Source
Open Source, a trademark of the Open Source Initiative, describes software that is developed by a community of
programmers using freely distributed, non-proprietary source code. Open source promotes software reliability and
quality by supporting independent peer review and rapid evolution of source code.
How To Reach OpenAvenue
OpenAvenue can be found online at openavenue.com. |
