Head over to Once More Unto the Breach and download/peruse the PDF file of Brent Williams' presentation on Open Source in business, including an analysis of both the Microvell deal and Oracle's Linux offering.

Brent Williams presented “Open Source Business Models: A Wall Street Look at a Wild 2006 and the Prospects for Even More Fun in 2007” at EclipseCon Tuesday. Brent is a (temporarily) independent equity research analyst. Unlike so many “Wall Street” types, he approaches the discussion from the economics of what people do, rather than what they say they do. Similar to r0ml in content, there are always surprises along the along the way.

The first 15-20 pages are the Novell and Oracle analyses, they are succinct and do a great job of pointing out how each company is 'solving the wrong problem'. A great point in page 13 is how $73M of Novell's $91M Linux subscription invoicing was from previous multi-year deals, seemingly belying Hovsepian's claims that the deal was helping Novell gain new customers.

Stephen Walli said it's "The Best Presentation on Software Business and Open Source I've Ever Seen", I think I am in total agreement - an excellent presentation, and thanks to Stephen (and Brent Williams obviously) for sharing.