Asay's job will be make sure operational activities match up to the company's strategic goals and make sure that day-to-day operations go smoothly. He will also head up Canonical's marketing. Asay is extremely well known and respected in open-source business and technology circles. [However, Pamela Jones takes exception to Asay's defense of Microsoft in her NewsPicks comment on this story. - gus3]

On their blogs, Matt Asay and Savio Rodrigues are discussing whether IBM is using open source to diminish competitor margins. I think it is obvious that IBM does this, most notably with its Linux engagement, which is squarely directed against Microsoft (Windows). It is what I call a war over the share of customer’s wallet, and open source plays a major role. The graph below shows how it works.

Open source is changing not just how companies make software, but how they sell it. Alfresco's Matt Asay explains the new sales cycle and the skills that today's software sales people need to close deals.

I must concede: Sometimes I worry Canonical is trying to do too much too soon with Ubuntu. ... But just when I get really worried, the company makes a major move that impresses me. A case in point: Open source expert Matt Asay has joined Canonical as chief operating officer. It's a big move for Canonical, Ubuntu and Asay. Here's why.

Matt Asay: “We have deep integration into Office, through web services, even though we’re a GPL product. If someone is wedded to Microsoft we’re probably not for them.
So Microsoft opens, and open source closes. Is that how it goes in your business, too?

Last week, Mary Jo Foley offered commentary on Microsoft's open source software strategy with respect to independent software vendors based on an interview with Microsoft's Sam Ramji. Matt Asay provides good colour commentary on his blog. Each post focuses on the trustworthiness and competitive history of the company. Let's look at things from a different perspective.

This week theme has been "who's going to pay for open source?" It's shown up in a number of blogs, like Matt Asay's.

Microsoft hugs "open source" in order to change what it actually is and Matt Asay, a former Noveller who came to Canonical, denounces Microsoft critics and defends engagement with Microsoft

I'm a big fan of Matt Asay's writings about free software even though I have been rather dreading the appearance of one that I knew, one day, he would write...because it would be wrong. And now he has written it, with the self-explanatory headline: “Free software is dead. Long live open source.”