Musings on the world of software from the sharp end of the long tail
Posted in Red Hat, Technology, open source on May 8th, 2008
There was a time when when the main selling point of (Free) Open Source was cost and consumers of the technology we’re willing to make compromises in other areas. I think that’s changed and Enterprise adoption is one of the causes. If your are responsible for maintaining your organization’s business crtitcal infrastructure - you’re […]
Posted in Business, open source on Apr 30th, 2008
Talking of Spring - SpringSource’s choice of license for their new ‘platform’ seems to have sparked some discussion over on TSS.
In a way - it’s sad that a perfectly decent product launch is over-shadowed by their choice of license - we (the OpenSource community) still clearly have work to do.
I haven’t decided whether their […]
Posted in Business, Marketing, open source on Apr 11th, 2008
In my (albeit short) experience of building a business based on Open Source; I’ve realized that demand generation is much more consumer (or individual) oriented - hence traditional marketing is no longer sufficient.
An adoption-led market needs passionate consumers. Offering great products is a start; but investing in your community and building passion for your technology […]
Posted in Marketing, Technology, open source on Mar 26th, 2008
This is article explains the shortcomings of the way web application providers typically engage potential customers - ie. the web form. I wonder how much time people spend filling in these dumb forms (never to return to the site) - what a waste - for all concerned. The article got me thinking about technology adoption […]
Posted in Business, Red Hat, open source on Mar 18th, 2008
Matt Assay provides some good reading as usual this morning. He’s tried to correlate stock prices of a few companies who base some or part of their business on Open Source with their “Open Source Business Maturity”. Essentially he’s plotted the stock price (ie. the financial market’s appraisal of the company) of Red Hat, Novell […]
Posted in Uncategorized, open source on Mar 14th, 2008
By way of Matt Assay (at c|net) - the US Navy - likely one of the world’s largest employers and users of technology just announced that they will no longer accept closed, proprietary technology. I liked this quote from Vice Adm. Mark Edwards (deputy chief of naval operations for communications) :
Above all, we must break […]
Posted in Enterprise, Technology, open source on Mar 5th, 2008
If you work in the IT / software industry and unless you’ve been shipwrecked on a deserted island for the last 5 years you have probably followed the rise of JBoss. I have tracked them very closely as a competitor. Founded in 2001; JBoss proved the commercial Open Source model, disrupted the incumbents in an […]