Neo Technology is launching a new open-source project to make the graph query language Cypher available to the masses. The project, openCypher, will provide a Cypher language specification, a reference implementation, a technology compatibility kit for vendors, and reference documentation for Cypher releases.

Initial supporters of the project include Oracle, Databricks, Tableau, GraphAware, GrapheneDB, Graph Story, GraphGrid, Information Analysis Incorporated, Linkurious, Structr, ThoughtWorks and Tom Sawyer Software.

“Lots of software systems could be improved by using a graph datastore,” said Rebecca Parsons, CTO of ThoughtWorks. “One thing holding back the category has been the lack of a widely supported, standard graph query language. We see the appearance of openCypher as an important step toward the broader use of graphs across the industry.”

Dell loses executive staff
Two of Dell’s executives are leaving to pursue other interests: the CTO of Dell Software, Don Ferguson, and Nnamdi Orakwue, the previous vice president of cloud and current vice president of software, according to Fortune.

George Reese, senior distinguished engineer and executive director for Dell’s Cloud Solutions Group, also is leaving. The departures come among rumors of wider cutbacks at the Round Rock, Texas company, according to the report.

Heroku and Parse partner up
Facebook’s cloud development platform Parse is teaming up with the cloud platform Heroku in order to provide greater flexibility and customization.

According to Matt Creager, developer evangelist at Heroku, Parse SDKs come with developer tools, but doesn’t allow developers to add customized functionality to their apps. By teaming up together, developers will be able to take advantage of both Heroku’s and Parse’s features.

“This combination gives you the flexibility and customization of the Heroku platform and the convenience of Parse’s cross-platform mobile SDKs,” he wrote in a post.