Interesting, Alfresco, Interesting

Alfresco seem to be making a (gentle) push into turning Open-Source users of their product into commercial users, at least according to their latest newsletter:

As I said, we value our community and want them to use our software in every way they can think of. But we also want them to know that if they use it in an enterprise environment, skipping the support subscription can cost them, as well as us.

From: http://www.alfresco.com/community/newsletters/2010/11/us.jsp

It's very interesting, especially given what existing research has to tell us on that topic: http://guillaumelerouge.com/great-article-on-open-source-customers-vs-com

I wonder how this will end up for Alfresco. In my experience, Open-Source users are a different breed than customers who come looking for professional support and services. I'm not saying that there are no bridges between both, but the post I linked to above is pretty much to the point about the time vs money argument.

In any case, if Alfresco ends up sharing any lessons and feedback from this, I'll be eager to learn them :-)

A competitor taking the iPad seriously

Now this is someone I'm ready to take seriously:

You can’t just put an operating system on a tablet and hope that — on a piece of glass and hope that you’re going to compete against the iPad. The iPad is a wonderful product. And if you’re going to give that wonderful product a run for its money, you better build something absolutely exquisite.

If Android and its hardware partners are to create a real competitor to the iPad, it's way better if they start acknowledging how good the iPad is and what needs to be done to make something better. I wouldn't expect a competitor to be so laudative of my own product if he wasn't at least thinking that he has something better up his sleeve.

Compare this to Steven Ballmer's derogatory comments about the iPhone, and it's much easier to understand why Windows Phone 7 is so underwhelming - Microsoft was never willing to accept how great the iPhone is in the first place and what truly needs to be done in order to build something better.

Article: How Facebook is Pulling an Android… and Why

Great article about facebook's strategy for mobile... We're looking at the future, we just don't know it yet.

Just as the implications of Android were much bigger than a potential gPhone, Facebook’s mobile platform strategy is bigger than any Facebook phone could be. Not to mention, the announcement’s similarities to Android’s own announcement draw some striking similarities.
http://phandroid.com/2010/11/03/how-facebook-is-pulling-an-android-and-why/


2 companies I'm watching right now

There are 2 potential future XWiki competitors I'm keeping an eye on right now. They're still in pre-production mode so it's unlikely we'll be competing against them in the short-term, but it's always interesting to see where the industry seems to be heading towards. They are:

PODIO
Aims is to let people build business applications simply. Sounds promising.

PROFERI SOFTWARE
Got invested in and pitched by Ben Horowitz. Looks like it's targeting business application and collaboration as well.

EDIT: AND HERE'S A THIRD ONE

ASANA
Was founded by a facebook co-founder. Tackling interesting challenges.

I'm however still circumspect about them. 2 other companies I thought to be promising and potential competitors never really materialized:
Now let's see whether those 2 prove me wrong :-)