Stream of Consciousness

"So, how do you make money?"

2008-05-08T08:53:00.002-04:00

Of all the questions while I work our booth here at JavaOne [for Alfresco], the initial exchange typically looks like this:

"I see you guys are an Open Source CMS Alternative, cool... so, how do you make money?"

Sure, there were the subsequent functional questions, comparisons, tech topics, etc - but most people still don't have a baseline knowledge about pricing models in an open source world. Quite illuminating. I would have expected this to be the last question, or at least some rough analogies drawn by default to RedHat or MySQL (/Sun).

Open source may be disruptive on the technology front, but altering peoples' buying habits looks to take longer to sink in. Should be no surprise I suppose: behavioral change always takes the longest.

P.S. Alfresco uses a dual licensing model.

Speak softly and carry a big stick

2008-05-02T15:09:00.003-04:00

Or better yet, let CMS Wire speak for you. Another great write-up on our latest release, Enterprise Edition 2.2 which contains

Web Application Preview and Test: provided users with the ability to preview in-context changes to any web application, including PHP, Ruby, JSF, Tiles, Struts, Groovy, and .NET
Web Farm Deployment Configuration: supports advanced deployment rules for scalable, 3-tier web application architectures with partitioned, replicated deployment
Site Templating and Branching: enable rapid creation of new sites from existing templates and the ability to baseline major site updates by branching existing site
Asset Reuse: allows updates and sharing of content across web projects
Email-based Collaboration: users can email directly into the repository and capture all discussions relating to a specific document
Email Archival: ability to automatically capture and archive all attached files and email messages
JMX-based Server Administration: JSR-160 support offers administrators access to Alfresco via a JMX console

More to come with 3.0 and beyond... take a look at the review, and as always download to try on your own!

Maudit tabernac mon ami... you left us way too early!

2008-04-24T17:37:00.007-04:00

This week I lost a very dear friend, Jeff Millar. We worked side-by-side at Vignette for 7 years. He was more than just a coworker or friend... he was in all respects a kindred spirit. A local obituary can be found here.

It sounds cliché, I know, but there is a hole in my heart that's ached all week. I just can't get over the shock that he's gone. Only 40 years old, and gone.

Jeff cherished language as an art form. This one's for you:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

Time to mourn you now my friend. I'll miss you dearly.

Transparency - benefits and obligations

2008-04-16T04:20:00.003-04:00

Whether in accounting, politics, or software - there's been an increasing amount of lip service paid to transparency. What a great word to fit into a sound bite. It conjures up images of light, and by slight extension, truth. Nobody wants to be in the "dark", so transparency must be good, right? In general, sure. But why - other than the feel good factor, why should anyone care about transparency?

Having personally observed this force at play in Open Source for the last year now, I see the key benefits of:

Holding people accountable - if all the facts are exposed, there's little to no wiggle room for any misunderstandings: intentional or not. Pass thru the data and minimize the "spin". Allow people to make decisions based on real data.

Fostering discussion - as a corollary to the above: examining data allows for questions, interactions, and analysis from several angles. Any results are more keenly understood, with less assumptions.

These are the true benefits, and more importantly obligations of transparency.

Specific to software, it's what RFPs and POCs have attempted to sift out for years. Nothing facilitates it better than Open Source. You have access to everything in the company, from the source code on up. Download the product, see it in action, read thru the docs -- and -- directly compare what it does to your key business requirements.

Alfresco Flying High

2008-04-15T13:52:00.002-04:00

Who could ask for a better write-up on one's company than this one from CMS Wire? Is a solid IPO in Alfresco's future... we'll see.

All I can say as their Director of Solutions Engineering is this: we have significant traction with major accounts across key verticals, such as Government, Financial Services, and Media. In my 12 months on board, I've never been busier, more productive - or happier.

"Flying High" is very apropos.

Finally past year-end, looking to the year ahead with Alfresco

2008-03-25T14:26:00.003-04:00

Just as I had established a good habit of regular blogging, our fiscal year-end occurred here at Alfresco... then AIIM... then User Group sessions. All of which were fantastic, but kept me quite busy doing "real" work!

2008 holds even more in store (guess I'll need to multi-task harder). We'll never be content with simply hitting functional par with the old ECM vendors, not by far.

Bring it on!!!

Recession vs Dot Bomb

2008-02-22T04:24:00.003-05:00

The linkage for supportive data is fairly loose on this recent article from Dana at ZDNet. Because banks are borrowing money and Microsoft made a bid for Yahoo, the sky is falling ala "Dot Bomb 2.0"? and worse, that Open Source is at the core?

I completely agree that business models utilizing open source are still evolving. Yes, the "open source" tag has some of the caché reminiscent of the old "e-commerce" one - but let's not confuse Marketing with Finance.

Only a few OS companies are as yet publicly traded. Anybody in the tech sector these days looking to IPO will go thru a lengthy process, and I sincerely doubt we'll see the triple digit first day closings that made the news in 1999 - 2000.

This is an overall recession, not the birth pangs of another dot bomb. NASDAQ is not laden with over-valued OS companies.

In fact, the inherent value of new pricing models brought about by open source companies may actually *benefit* from a mild recession if executed properly.

Democratic Party Superdelegates - Be Advised

2008-02-16T06:50:00.000-05:00

With few exceptions, I have voted in every election since age 18. My first vote was cast from a booth in Upstate NY - in my own High School. I believed in the system, but over the years that belief changed.

The last several years in particular always resulted in choosing the "lesser of two evils". Campaigns and candidates generated such a negative, divisive environment - that it became less about who to vote for, and more about who to vote against. I hated what our democratic process had become, and more importantly, how it increasingly fractured the electorate. We compromised our principles instead of compromising to unify as Americans.

That cycle finally broke for me in 2008 with Barack Obama.

I know exactly where he stands on the issues, how his campaign is (and is not) funded, and can see not just the momentum - but the positive affect he will have for us. Finally, for my first time in 20 years, a candidate to cast a solid vote *for*. Don't take away this opportunity for me, for the Party, and for the Country.

Restore us to the core values on which this nation was founded. Listen to your electorate. Nominate Barack Obama for President of the United States.

Open Calais - semantic web's first serious analysis engine

2008-02-11T10:02:00.000-05:00

Reuters top-down metadata generation Calais service is now open for anyone to use (commercial and non-commercial). According to their FAQ:

The Calais initiative seeks to help make all the worlds content more accessible, interoperable and valuable via the automated generation of rich semantic metadata, the incorporation of user defined metadata, the transportation of those metadata resources throughout the content ecosystem and the extension of it’s capabilities by user-contributed components.

However, this is about more than just tagging and sets the stage nicely for the first serious analysis engine ala Semantic Web. Plus, it complements the recent Google Social Graph efforts built on XFN / FOAF via “bottom-up” metadata transport features.

A Kodak moment for Microsoft

2008-02-03T07:34:00.000-05:00

With all the noise around Microsoft / Yahoo, I can't help but think of parallels. Is this part of something truly transformative for the Redmond gang, or will they follow in the footsteps of Kodak? Defending your business is one thing -- always being on the defensive is another, and usually indicates disruptive innovation at work:

© 2008 DLTJ / Peter Murray

a. A disruptive innovation reaches the point where it can satisfy the least demanding customers; least demanding customers drop the established, higher performing option on the basis of other factors (cost, convenience, etc.).

b. The established product exceeds the needs of the most demanding customers; sustaining innovations now fuel “performance oversupply.”

c. The disruptive innovation meets the level of performance required by the most demanding customers; those customers drop the established option on the basis of other factors.

Forces such as Open Source and Social Networking are far more profound than a shiny new search engine and portal site. Google is clearly seen as a threat, but is Microsoft aiming at the right target?

Or will Redmond, WA transform into another Rochester, NY?

Transplanting the garden with Google's Social Graph API

2008-02-01T17:22:00.000-05:00

Leave it to Brad Fitzpatrick and the gang at Google to finally come up with an API for this. His video is worth the 2 minute investment to get a sense of where they're taking things. According to the docs page:

The Social Graph API now makes information about the public connections between people on the Web, expressed by XFN and FOAF markup and other publicly declared connections, easily available and useful for developers.

Excellent start to externalizing the graph as well as keeping it fully decentralized. Kudos to all involved!

All that glitters is not Social (Apps)

2008-02-01T07:55:00.000-05:00

An article by Chris Williams on "facebook fatigue" references some interesting metrics supplied by comScore

The average length of time users spend on all of the top three sites is on the slide. Bebo, MySpace and Facebook all took double-digit percentage hits in the last months of 2007.

Seems that the glitter might be waning a bit more quickly than even I had thought. Time to get back to basics.

FB - how does your garden grow?

2008-01-27T10:38:00.000-05:00

There's no denying the critical mass swirling around Mark Zuckerberg's brainchild. But are they sensing a premature plateau on the horizon? If not, then why bother to open up their walled garden?

The answer is simple; they're not. According to Henry Blodget at alleyinsider.com:

This move seems another smart step toward a hybrid strategy: Allow app makers (and Facebook) to extend social-graph functionality to the web, gather more app users, and recruit more members--but retain full control over the social graph itself.

This couldn't be any closer to the definition of "closed". Fortunately for us, there are alternatives. OpenID, while still somewhat nascent, sets the foundation for a truly open design.

Vignette - as viable as the Titanic

2008-01-26T06:01:00.000-05:00

While the ride for this CMS vendor lasted longer than its nautical counterpart, I have to agree with Kas Thomas at CMS Watch. The iceberg's been struck:

* Total revenue for fiscal year 2007 was $191.8 million, down 3% from fiscal year 2006.
* Year-over-year license revenue: down 15.5%.
* Year-over-year services revenue: up 3.5%.
* R&D spending: down 8.9%.

And all of this on the heels of a Q3 alone that produced year-over-year license revenues which were down by 50% (yes, FIFTY).

Now watch everyone scatter for the lifeboats:

1/10/2008 - Leo Brunnick (Vignette Senior VP, Products and Marketing) announces intent to resign. His last day was the 25th

1/16/2008 - Vignette GM for EMEA is replaced

1/25/2008 - Graham Pullen, GM for APAC, resigns

Time to let this one go Kate Winslet style (sorry Leo [DiCaprio], er, Vignette).

Take another hit from your bong

2008-01-25T04:53:00.000-05:00

A recent article by Bill Snyder makes reference to a new study from Research 2.0 (which I could not locate) and surmises:

The sea change in open source from pure-play provider to traditional vendor is not a symptom of discontent with the software itself... All of this is evidence that the days of the freewheeling open source movement are numbered.

One of us is living in their own reality as I certainly don't see the same thing. If you're gonna hit the bong that hard, at least pass it along with the article for the rest of us.

Economic stimulus - Rebate or Welfare?

2008-01-20T10:57:00.000-05:00

While the President and Congress agree in principle on some form of a stimulus package, everyone also concedes that many details must be vetted -- and quickly. The centerpiece of the plan will be:

...in the form of one-time rebates. But he [President Bush] did not say how much money Americans would get to keep or the amount of other tax incentives that could be in the package. Nor did Bush detail how the nation would pay for such a plan.

Does this seem to anyone else like "robbing Peter to pay Paul"? I get the concept, and this approach has precedent. However, I'm concerned that the only real impact will be in this week's headlines - and not on our economy.

Furthermore, when the Democrats have Charles Rangel (Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee) spouting off on national television this morning about how Republicans want to "exclude" 45 million people who didn't pay taxes from receiving a rebate, you really have to wonder what they're doing at both ends of Pennsylvania avenue. For all the supposed non-partisan-we're-working-hard-for-you-America tone, it sure feels like party politics are out weighing some pretty major domestic problems.

How can someone who never paid a cent in taxes be eligible for a tax rebate - excuse me Mr. Rangel, but if that's the goal for this package then let's call it what it is, welfare. I agree that many inequities still exist in America: jobs, wages, taxes - take your pick - but playing Robin Hood with funds from the IRS will not even that out... not by a long shot.

Perhaps if our legislative body would get down to actually doing some serious legislating, we might see an improvement in the Tax Code, Healthcare, and other crucial domestic issues. Whatever the approach, it will have to be more substantive than a soundbite on ABC.

TNBT - The Next Big Thing?

2008-01-18T14:49:00.000-05:00

God help us all, with Web 2.0 still solidifying there's already (increased) talk of Web 3.0 - and 4.0. Now everything is versioned ad infinitum.

Whether it's dubbed the Killer App, Web 3.0, or just the Next Big Thing, it is looking to be a very cool application space.

Keep an eye on this in 2008!

"Open"ing up IDs

2008-01-18T07:54:00.000-05:00

Finally, someone who's serious about OpenID - a great first step:

Yahoo!'s initial OpenID service, which will be available in public beta on January 30, enables a seamless and transparent web experience by allowing users to use their custom OpenID identifier on me.yahoo.com or to simply type in "www.yahoo.com" or "www.flickr.com" on any site that supports OpenID 2.0. Alternatively, web sites that accept OpenID 2.0 will be able to add a simple "Sign-in with Your Yahoo! ID" button to their login pages that will make it even easier for their users.

Now if we can just find ways to splice in the social graph and access the same data consistently across sites.

Déjà Vu - All Over Again

2008-01-13T10:05:00.000-05:00

It seems like everyone wants to crack the secret code on how to make money with Open Source. Michael Grove provides a solid reality-check:

To be a commercial success it is critical to understand and drive towards meeting the needs of your sweet spot, pragmatic customer who is looking for results, a dependable relationship and low risk.

Open Source will not magically sell any easier because there's something special about it per se, but rather because it helps properly align a software company with Michael's points above.

Having worked in the software industry for 18 years, I've seen numerous instances where a company effectively taps into a need at first... only to trip under their own momentum. The single, biggest contributing factor?

They lost touch with their customers.

Open Source may facilitate such alignment, but all the same marketing, pricing model, strategy, and execution discussions remain. And once you have that nailed, don't ever, EVER, forget who got you there -- your customers, not OSS.

Think of it as a tool, a construct: and a great one at that. However, OSS is not a business model. Keep focus on your customers and competitors, and use open source as a differentiator -- not vice versa.

A Perfect Storm brewing in 2008?

2008-01-12T06:34:00.000-05:00

I recently wrote about Software Darwinism -- why too much government control of the industry would backfire, and how OSS made for a much more (pardon the pun) natural selection process. Brian Proffitt's excellent post on Consumer Darwinism and the Rise of FOSS takes an even broader view. He asserts that with the rise of the PC:

If no one knows what computers can be used for, they decided, then we will tell the customer what they can do with them. And so they did. With operating systems, office suites, accounting programs, these software companies essentially invented the desktop PC paradigm from the ground up. And now, here we are, over 20 years later, using essentially the same paradigm to judge the worthiness of all other software.

Now, with the maturity of Linux as well as the overall open source distribution / business model... coupled with a generation of users who have grown-up with computers

"The desktop" as a paradigm is changing, to be replaced by whatever this consumer-driven market decides it wants. For too long, consumers have been told what they could do with technology. Now they are telling software vendors what they want, and are not so quick to buy into what the vendors have sold them in the past.

We've seen this happen in markets before, and nothing stands more ready to weather (and incur) such disruption than open source... Sound too much like a geek pipe-dream? Still wondering about actual market viability? Don't. Fortune provides several reasons why.

2008 may just be the year of the Perfect Storm for OSS.

OLPC - slipping to the Dark Side?

2008-01-09T17:01:00.000-05:00

From a purely technical perspective, the news that OLPC is in talks with Microsoft "to develop a dual-boot system to put both Linux and Windows on laptops aimed at kids in developing countries" has to be the most retarded thing I've heard in a long time.

Why would anyone create such a beautiful thing as XO, only to crap on it by jamming in any version of a Microsoft OS? Very disappointing - even with a dual boot approach. Why bother?

Stranger still is Negroponte's rationale that

Microsoft has embraced the open-source community over the past few years in a very different way than before.

The best response to which came from a comment on another blog:

Microsoft embraces the open-source community like a dog embraces a leg.

Nothing a good neutering can't correct.

Your online DNA, does Facebook hold the patent?

2008-01-04T16:07:00.000-05:00

If I can ingest contact info from Outlook to LinkedIn, and from Gmail to Facebook... why is it "wrong" for me to carry my social graph data from Facebook to Plaxo, or anywhere else for that matter?

It's not about privacy: every user can control what data does / does not show to others, including their email addresses:

And it's not about protecting Facebook's servers. I'm sure they could accommodate the minimal load involved.

It's about revenue and nothing else. They're afraid that if it's easy for us all to switch to another site, then it can only be bad for them. How sad, and myopic. Facebook provides a lot more value than just the data they want to lock-up.

It seems that ever-prevalent-paranoid-mentality from Redmond has quickly crept into the halls at FB.

Externalizing user profile data... and the social graph

2007-12-29T07:28:00.000-05:00

Efforts like Mozilla's Weave and OpenID make for a compelling option to finally externalize a user's complete profile. Imagine being able to define (in a secure, encrypted way of course):

Name, Email, et al basic stats

just once and then use a single login to access multiple sites. The concept is definitely nothing new: companies have done it for a while on their Intranets using various SSO solutions.

Obviously, this gets a bit trickier when propagated outside the firewall and across multiple domains. Who "owns" the profile data? Where is it stored (and how)? Weave is just now getting launched, but if they can nail in reality the concept as documented:

This would provide key benefits for us all -- and probably help drive further adoption of Firefox. In addition, I think it's possible to incorporate storage of social graph elements here. Then things will get interesting as "switching costs" are removed. Any sites will have to live or die based on the features they provide, and not just because our data (e.g. list of friends) is stored there.

Feasibility on this remains to be seen, but if things head in this direction it could fundamentally change the dynamics for the Web 2.0 market.

Update on Tuesday, 1/1:

I should have figured that somebody else had already given this much more pondering... Brad Fitzpatrick's Thoughts on the Social Graph is a MUST READ!!!

And Ujwal Tickoo reconfirms the idea

Facebook - this too shall pass?

2007-12-25T06:27:00.000-05:00

David Sacks provides an excellent view on how portals have been fundamentally redefined since their inception:

He further asserts that each transition was due to surpassing what I'll call a critical data saturation mark that drastically reduced the usefulness of the previous method. In short, applying simple aggregation logic will not scale since

The core question a portal needs to answer for a user is “How do I find the information I need?”

and the ability of a portal to do so is inversely proportional to the underlying volume of data. Summarizing or segmenting things only helps to reduce the volume for a while. However as the portal gains critical mass, it will eventually succumb to the same underlying force.

Couple this with a fantastic article by Tom Gruber on Collective Knowledge Systems which predicts:

Today, that interaction pattern treats the web as an information source: we learn by browsing, searching, and monitoring the web. Tomorrow, the web will be understood as an active human-computer system, and we will learn by telling it what we are interested in, asking it what we collectively know, and using it to apply our collective knowledge to address our collective needs.

In my opinion, shifting from collected to collective intelligence will be the next major transition. Whether this is done as an entirely new site or as an app within Facebook, we'll see... but one thing's for sure: aggregating popularity-based metrics alone will encounter the same inherent limitations as previous cycles.

Update on Friday, 12/28:

Jeremiah nails another force at play here:

...we’re all looking to see how social graph will open up and let us migrate freely between networks. THEN the need to build best of breed social platforms will be needed.

If this is added to the mix, it will provide a catalyst for all of the above.

Yes, FB is more than just a portal and I'm very much a fan of it, not a foe. However, after the glitter wanes a bit it'll be back to basics. Perhaps something like Mozilla Labs Weave or planned extensions to OpenID might set the proper foundation to open up the social graph... give us a kind of "social transportability" that will move things to the next level? If so, it would undoubtedly force solid competition based on the features of the actual platform -- and not just who happens to store the graph.

You can't legislate Darwinism

2007-12-19T14:33:00.000-05:00

When I took my first job working for a software vendor (in 1996), one of my co-workers was adamant that the "Wild West" days of development were drawing to a close. More structure and licensing requirements were sure to come, as with other professions... Doctors, Lawyers, etc. Poor software quality would be litigated / mitigated thru resulting legislation.

Thankfully, more than 10 years later such regulation never occurred, but an even more powerful force does fill the need: Open Source.

When the world can see the naked, unvarnished quality of your code, there's nothing you can hide. If it's junk, they'll spot it. If it's beautifully architected, they'll admire it... in fact, some may contribute to the code base directly to inject new features.

OSS products will live or die based on utility as well as quality. No amount of legislation could ever have the same (positive) impact.

Organizational Structure - Impact on Innovation

2007-12-08T10:02:00.000-05:00

During most of my career, I've been in large Corporate organizations. There was usually room for both Managers (multiple levels) and Leaders. However, innovation from the latter rarely had any impact on the business. That was for managers to decide, and their goals almost never aligned.

Recently, I experienced the exact opposite of this dilemma. A much flatter hierarchy that's run mostly by consensus. Everyone gets a voice. Topics are debated. Actions are assigned. Politics are minimal. What an invigorating shift!!

Of course, this requires a different culture. But when it clicks, the results are amazing.

Always reaching to exceed your grasp

2007-11-26T09:44:00.000-05:00

Funny how we all place limits on ourselves. Even if unintentional or subconsciously, it's so easy to back off on certain tasks because of a knee-jerk "there's no way I could do that" or worse, "that's not my job".

Reflecting on every major transition in my career, I often think that -- had I truly known what the next step involved -- I would have probably not made the shift. Perhaps missing some of the facts can be a good thing.

When that's not the case, you have to consciously push yourself to up your game. It's hard; I know. Exceeding your grasp takes as much faith as facts, driven by the will to do more.

Stretch yourself beyond complacency. You will be amazed.

Access to the Alfresco web site

2007-11-18T05:44:00.000-05:00

This weekend there was a problem with our domain registrar, Reg-123, and the sites for which they provide domain services. This means that anyone trying to access our web site via web access or email cannot find our servers. The Alfresco servers are fine and running, but the alfresco.com domain is not.

If you want to reach anyone in Alfresco by email, you can do so by using @alfresco.org instead of @alfresco.com.

To access the web site, please use the following URLs:

* www.alfresco.com - please use http://88.208.218.102/
* customers.alfresoco.com and partners.alfresco.com - please use http://88.208.200.70/alfresco/
* forums.alfresco.com - please use http://217.174.252.22/

We will try to get this resolved as quickly as possible. Rest assured we will take steps to make sure this never happen again.

Social Computing - "Unified Theory" for Web 2.0?

2007-11-11T09:48:00.000-05:00

First the Internet, that ever nebulous "cloud", expanded and morphed to the point that it eventually flexed inside of Corporate firewalls to become the Intranet. Next came Wikis and Blogs with the whole "Web 2.0" craze... which continues to seep into companies today. Following the same absorption process, and nicely blending all previous technical crazes: social computing.

This lends the context that's been missing to make effective use of recent technologies. Perhaps not as profound as the (still elusive) unified theory for Physics, but no less important where software is concerned. Think: Facebook meets your ECM. How much more useful would something as mundane as a content management system become when similar features are applied?

We'll see soon... innovators in this space are bringing tangible products to market within the next few months. Laggards beware!!

Chasm 2.0 - Oceans instead of Tornadoes

2007-10-03T08:30:00.000-04:00

Metaphors always abound in marketing, but I rather like this one:

Tactically, there will always be competition, etc... but strategically, we need to target the "Blue Ocean". This implies a healthy amount of innovation across all areas of a company. One more advantage for an Open Source approach.

Blame it on Quarter end

2007-08-31T05:06:00.000-04:00

It's the last day of our quarter here at Alfresco, and I just realized that I've neglected my blog for a full month. If nothing else, it tells you about the activity here!

Engineering put out a fantastic release with 2.1 -- in particular the Web Scripting functionality. This greatly expands access into the repository and has gained traction in several scenarios... for portals, .Net, et al general N-tier designs.

Definitely take a look if you haven't already.

KISSing your customers

2007-07-25T10:14:00.000-04:00

Well, figuratively anyway. The key point being per Occam's razor:

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity

The corresponding idea of being "customer focused" or "customer driven" is certainly nothing new, but it too needs to extend throughout the entire organization.

Too often, software companies become development-focused and try to create the mother-of-all-applications. Simple ideas are vastly over-architected, and the methods required to implement them become foreign to those who would use it.

Never loose sight of the target market. Make things functional but simple (versus simplistic). It can be done.

From Stagnation to rapid Innovation

2007-07-13T16:32:00.000-04:00

There's nothing worse for someone technical (much less a software company) than stagnation. At best, it breeds mediocrity -- and at worst, it turns to rot and decay. While the CMS market as a whole matures and consolidates and, to some extent, stagnates: there's none of that at Alfresco. Not even close.

The amount of features added in the latest release, not just volume but solid, *relevant* features is incredible. Coupled with a clean architecture, strong roadmap, and ever-growing community base... this is truly a kick-ass product to behold.

OK, so I work there and my view is by definition therefore tainted. Another beauty of the open source model: see for yourself, right now. Just visit

http://dev.alfresco.com/downloads

and get cranking with your own install today. Be sure to download the WCM module and tutorials (especially the Virtualization Server). And to checkout the new WebScripting capability (REST-based API). Many, many items to explore.

OSS: Transforming Relationships

2007-07-07T13:06:00.000-04:00

Enough has been blogged to date about the main benefits of Open Source: Democratization, Innovation, etc. This are of course key. However, as a recent convert from the dark side (a.k.a Enterprise Sales) what strikes me the most is the impact on customer relationships.

Having been in the industry for 17 years -- the last 10 working for vendors -- the notion of "transparency" that comes with applying an OSS style to one's business model makes for more than a slick marketing slide. It permeates the software company's culture and drastically transforms relationships across-the-board. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but the next time you feel like something is being withheld by a proprietary vendor during a sales cycle, it's probably because you're right...

When prospects can instead download both your product as well as its source code freely on the Internet, that changes things. The whole discussion becomes one of making projects succeed, rather than finding the hidden gotchas in locked-down software. Who wants to start of a relationship with so much (almost expected) negativity?

Approaching things in an open source manner has impact far beyond the Engineering labs of a company. It's not simply a development methodology. Nor is it solely a fundamental shift in business models. While both are true, the real win for customers is the ability to enter into relationships with someone who wants to see them succeed with their software.

Big, "Mac" Attack???

2007-06-29T06:02:00.000-04:00

Alfresco is like many other companies with Mac and PC camps. I converted less than a year ago and now use a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro for work. Any lingering doubts were removed last week, during an onsite training course.

A colleague of mine conducted the training from his Windows XP laptop. It barely stayed running all day without something having to restart or reboot - just to accommodate him as a single user.

This coupled with other logistical issues forced us to utilize my Mac as a classroom server so we could keep the course going. The 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo with 2Gb RAM streamed along effortlessly and scaled to handle our peak attendance of 18 concurrent users. Quite the contrast in performance.

So much so that my co-worker may finally convert himself. Seems he had a big Mac attack!

Livin la vida Alfresco

2007-06-15T13:55:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update. I haven't forgotten my blog, but am rather entrenched in my new job at Alfresco. Today marks 2 weeks.

Gotta stay heads-down and learn a new product from the inside out. Will return to more blog posts when I'm better able to "tread water" here.

The smell of Fear

2007-05-20T06:45:00.000-04:00

"UNIX is snake oil" - Ken Olsen, 1987

"Linux is a cancer" - Steve Ballmer, 2001

"There is an overwhelming number of patents being infringed [by FOSS]." - Horacio Gutierrez, 2007

Microsoft's biggest competitor anymore is itself... unless they stop blaming everybody else and start taking a serious look in the mirror, we all know where this path will lead.

FOSS has as much snake oil in it as Unix did, and look where we are 20 years later.

Schrödinger's Cat

2007-05-11T17:00:00.000-04:00

I saw a local student wearing this the other day

which of course on the back states the cat is NOT dead... made me recall the excellent book written by Brian Greene. Nothing like special / general relativity, quantum mechanics, and calabi-yau manifolds to get the mental juices flowing.

I often wonder how much not only our math, but our language, inherently limits our ability to understand such things more easily. Perhaps that's why some of us like Linux better than Windows... I'd rather be given a construct to build my own "reality" (give me a command line and pipes any day!) than be limited by flawed assumptions that time (much less the Bill Gates notion of computing) is experienced in the same manner by everyone.

Quick - someone stick an Ubuntu server near the event horizon of a black hole!! Who wants to bet that Vista wouldn't escape Earth's orbit without blue-screening?!?!?

Dealing with Open Source FUD

2007-05-03T09:14:00.000-04:00

Matt's recent blog on how to manage the "No Open Source" clause helps to dispel a lot of FUD that's still lingering out there. In particular, point #3 notes:

If a customer is not planning to distribute the software outside their organization, then they can modify open source-licensed software ad infinitum without having to contribute a single line back.

I've seen many companies who still believe that any IP developed on open source must be placed back into the public domain. A little education and a few "marquee account" case studies will help to combat these points. In addition to free passes for an annual event, maybe the OSBC could sponsor webinars on this topic to proactively educate a broader audience?

Over time these barriers will come down -- any companies leading the charge will certainly enjoy massive growth.

TV, wireless to wired to wireless (again)

2007-04-24T10:25:00.000-04:00

Kind of funny that TV was the original wireless transmission, only to become wired with cable, and now locally wireless again with new technology. Tzero provides some cool new features - but it's not on the market as yet. Just tracking it for now, and waiting for the initial product to hit BestBuy later this year.

Who wouldn't love a nicely framed HD set "floating" on the wall... sans wires!!!

Spring and AOP

2007-04-23T12:54:00.001-04:00

Interesting "aspect" to Spring... in addition to the overall framework and portability angles, AOP provides some unique elements. An excellent background and subsequent highlights:

clipped from www.theserverside.com

AOP

Since 2003 there has been much interest in applying AOP solutions to those enterprise concerns, such as transaction management, which have traditionally been addressed by EJB.

Spring AOP supports method interception. Key AOP concepts supported include:

Interception: Custom behaviour can be inserted before or after method invocations against any interface or class. This is similar to "around advice" in AspectJ terminology.

Introduction: Specifying that an advice should cause an object to implement additional interfaces. This can amount to mixin inheritance.

Static and dynamic pointcuts: Specifying the points in program execution at which interception should take place. Static pointcuts concern method signatures; dynamic pointcuts may also consider method arguments at the point where they are evaluated. Pointcuts are defined separately from interceptors, enabling a standard interceptor to be applied in different applications and code contexts.

Ubuntu - "Feisty Fawn" (7.04) is no Bambi

2007-04-20T13:01:00.000-04:00

Run, do not walk, but run to Ubuntu and check it out.

Download the latest version (7.04 as of this writing, aka "Feisty Fawn"). It's only a 700 Mb file that you extract onto a bootable CD. Test run it straight from there without impacting your existing machine... if you like, then install it permanently using the shortcut provided.

Quick, easy, and very user-friendly (contrary to any previous Linux stigma). As with any Unix-based system, it runs much more efficiently *and* securely than that disease laden petrie dish of an OS from Redmond.

If you're not ready to switch over completely, breathe some life into an older PC by installing Ubuntu there. You'll be amazed at how quickly it can perform on older chipsets with even 512 Mb RAM.

Things we take for granted: heat, power, and SUMP PUMPS

2007-04-16T10:15:00.000-04:00

Amazing how a natural emergency consistently reminds you of:

a) the importance of common welfare
b) the things we take for granted

We've had a bit of local flooding here in NJ. Our neighbors across the street have it worse - basements with 1 - 2 feet of water (and therefore no heat). Out of sheer luck I had cut wood in my shed from a bunch of trees we cleared last year. Our heat is fortunately still running, so we rationed our wood to anyone who has a fireplace.

I'm not looking for any praise, this was a no-brainer for me. But it is nice to see people across-the-board come together during any such difficulty.

What amazes me even more is how reliant I am on things I cannot control... like the power, and the sump pump in our basement. That $100 device is currently all that's left between a miserable, rainy day - and a huge cleanup headache. We've lived in this house for almost 3 years, and until today, I paid it no attention.

This morning, it's the only thing on my mind. Such a simple tool for such a critical task. One more reminder of the many things we take for granted every day.

Callwave - FREE Visual Voicemail for mobile phones

2007-04-15T11:29:00.000-04:00

Check this service from CallWave. Use it to switch from your mobile phone's default voice mail to one that shoots messages to your email. For us heavy email users (and / or anyone not always wanting the cell phone turned on), this is perfect!

I made the switch in just a couple of minutes.