I was reading today about Oracle Corporation and their Unbreakable Linux software infrastructure and I couldn’t help but wonder “Is Oracle going to be equally excited about MySQL when it begins to take significant quantities of sales away from them?” Oh sure, it is great to push open source when it is your outside of impacting your revenue stream, but it will be a very different story once MySQL grows up.

My prediction is that any attempts to corner and exploit the open source movement will backfire on a company. Also, any attempts to link a company’s brand to the open source movement, will fail. Since I am a recent convert to the open source community I hesitate to speak for them, however, I have spent over 17 years working closely with developers, and I don’t believe they are going to appreciate any company cornering in on what they essentially own.

I’m also very concerned with another precedent that Oracle is making. Human nature 101, tell anyone that they can not do something is one of the most inspiring statements you can make. Since I am not a security expert either I’m not qualified to say how much more secure UNIX or Linux is than Windows. However, I do believe that Windows suffers from Number 1 syndrome. When your number one, then every team you play thinks it is their title match. Therefore, every hacker hoping to prove himself aims at Windows and Microsoft technologies. My second prediction is that Oracle is setting the stage for Linux to become the new target. Imagine if you will that you are an up and coming hacker and you want to prove yourself, what more tempting target could you pick than one that claims to be “Unbreakable?”

You hear many companies talk about it. You hear the leaders of companies extol the value of their employees. I think they get it, but not quite. For me employees are like raw materials for construction. The true power of human resources lies in what we can accomplish collectively. Just as with cement, it has little value by itself, but when it is combined with other raw materials, we can create amazing structures that exceed our imagination. The structures that we can create with human resources are relationships.

I have long wondered why business was not more productive. We also see many reports about the lack of impact of information technology on productivity. I believe that these observations are symptoms of a bigger problem. How can we build relationships that make us jointly more productive? How do we create environments that foster empowering relationships that build participants up, instead of subjugating some and elevating others? Why do so many companies emphasize praising employees, but in practice rarely do so outside of token efforts?

We need a few good collaboration facilitators, configurators, diplomats, and enablers. We need professionals who focus on improving the process of creating powerful relationships. We need human resources that remove the barriers that impede our relationships. Traditionally, this role has fallen on to the shoulders of leaders and management, but unfortunately there are few who are up to this challenge. With the constant demand for productivity improvements and increased profitability, the most successful enterprises will be those that can find effective collaborators, incubate their skills, and train their managers on building empowering relationships.