When a company gets bought out it’s natural top executives will be shown the door. And so the parade has begun at Sun, now part of Oracle. This is a good thing for open source. Talent is returning to the wild with credibility and experience others can benefit from. Take the case of Simon “Webmink” Phipps (above). The former chief open ... [
Meryl Streep won the Oscar for Sophie’s Choice, a film that hinges on (spoiler alert) a woman having to choose which of her children will live and which will die. Microsoft is for that kind of choice. In a blog post later copied to GovLoop, Microsoft’s Dan Kasun lays it out. “Choice has been one of Microsoft’s strongest messages for years,” ... [
Once again, Google has bought something only to open source it. This time it’s ReMail, first acquired, then put on Google Code as open source under the Apache 2.0 license. (It previously did the same thing with DocVerse.) ReMail was more efficient in terms of system resources than Apple’s own mail.app, it offered full text searching, and it had other neat ... [
Apple’s suit against HTC could end one of two ways. Either Apple becomes the next SCO, which ran itself aground claiming rights to Linux, or it becomes the next Microsoft, which is prospering while claiming to own Linux. The answer depends on how hard Apple presses its case. You can get a clue by looking at who Apple has sued. While ... [
The low-hanging fruit in the renewable energy business still lies with efficiency. Cutting your energy use without crimping your lifestyle gives you a faster payback than turning into Ed Begley Jr. It’s still good to be a little Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) on energy use, even if your politics are to the right of Rush Limbaugh, because there’s money in saving, ... [
The 311 service has been a “red headed stepchild” for American cities practically since it was launched in the mid-1990s as a phone service. (Picture from Moonbattery, a conservative blog.) The idea was to make 311 the 911 for non-emergency calls. A burning building call 911, a burning question call 311. But that charge was so broad that most cities did ... [
In all the talk about New York financier Paul Singer’s plan to go all Gordon Gecko on Novell, one word has not been mentioned nearly enough. Microsoft. Microsoft needs a viable Novell, and Novell’s Linux business was on the verge of becoming viable when Singer’s Elliott Associates swooped in with an offer to break up the company, seize its cash, split ... [
Dries Buytaert of Drupal and Acquia is warning that Software as a Service is becoming a threat to open source and that clouds could create the same vendor lock-in customers sought to avoid with open source. (This is Dries at last year’s Drupalcon in Paris, in a close-up of a photo by Pedro Lozano. From buytaert.net.) Even where SaaS companies let ... [
That first step is interoperability. Getting proprietary gear to work together, to transform reports among proprietary standards, is the first step on the road to an open world. The HIMSS show takes that step every year with what it calls its Interoperability Showcase. At this year’s show in Atlanta it occupied the whole end of one hall of the Georgia World ... [
The announcement by Twitter that it is switching to Cassandra for its database lookups puts new attention on a project that has yet to reach Version 1.0. Cassandra had been underway long before Oracle bought Sun and mySQL. Facebook first launched it in 2008 to power their inbox search feature. It was released on Google Code in 2008 and became an ... [
Today Matt Asay urges government buyers to support open source, open data and open standards. Why? Because it’s better. Because it promotes competition. Because it gives government flexibility. But after watching government on every level, in various countries, for over half my lifetime, I can tell you the last thing any government wants is to make a decision its successor can ... [
Since I began writing this blog in 2005 I have watched open source move from a fringe idea to something embraced by the IT mainstream. But there are still extremists out there who want to destroy open source. Some of their names may surprise you. What they have done is retreat into a group where they seek not to be identified. ... [
No. Matt Asay hits the nail on the head. In full “knock this board off my shoulder mode,” the Ubuntu COO dares Microsoft to sue Canonical, or Google, or someone else over its Linux claims who might fight back. To torture my recent analogy (analogies can’t fight back), Microsoft isn’t Neville Chamberlain. It’s the guy on the other side of the ... [
In response to my piece yesterday, my Italian friend Roberto Galoppini referenced a piece he did last August called the Open Source Innovation Backbone. Packaged software companies may just use open source to build a common base on which they can innovate. Or they may copy a proprietary product, competing against it together in order to drive out a competitor’s monopoly ... [
Open source may become the default position of customers, but it is still not the first option when a market is new. This is a point open source executives like Matt Asay continue to struggle with, one that closed-source advocates continue to hammer on. (Picture from the Breakthrough Institute.) Open source is shared freeloading. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. ... [It’s been a while since I last posted here.
I’ve been busy with a few new service offerings plus an ebook titled CRM Success Series – User Adoption Planning which you can down load from the ETP site.
My latest offering is Hosted Web Form Services including a Hosted Database and Email Blast Service. This is a [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Books'
Web Form Marketing Services
November 23rd, 2009 · No Comments
Tags: Books · Business Process · Marketing · Tools
Selling at a Startup
April 6th, 2009 · No Comments
I’m about half way through Guy Kawasaki’s Book ” Reality Check“. Guy is a well known VC in the Valley and has some interesting insights about getting startups off the ground.
He contends that all you really need to get a startup off the ground is a great engineer and a great salesperson. You need the [...]
Tags: Books · Marketing · Startup
Watchmen
March 7th, 2009 · No Comments
I went to see Watchmen last night. I read the book a few months back which is considered the benchmark for the graphic novel genre. I have enjoyed graphic novels in the past and Watchmen was certainly no exception. Very well done.
As for the movie, I was really interested in seeing how they would approach [...]
The World is Flat
March 9th, 2008 · No Comments
My friend Bill is reading “The World is Flat” right now. We were talking about how much things have changed over the last 10 years, for the better I might add.
Being a technology person and in particular, being involved with the Open Source Software movement for the last 10 years, I have kind of been [...]
Tags: Books · Marketing · Open Source · Transformation
Need for Communications in Managing Project
January 25th, 2008 · No Comments
I’m reading “Managing the Gray Areas” by Jerry Manas right now. Jerry makes a number of excellent points throughout [I'm about 1/2 way through]. I found his observations about natural communication gaps in managing projects, particularly as it relates to communications with SMEs [Subject Matter Experts] and Generalists.
He goes on to say that all projects [...]
Tags: Books · Project Management
