Marketing

Podcast recording with Dan Lyons coming soon

Despite myriad technical difficulties we just got through recording Open Season Episode 12 with special guest Dan Lyons aka. Fake Steve Jobs.

It's a good one and Dan is really entertaining. We talk about freetards, how he may or not have been a Microsoft shill and why Novell can't get it right.

In the meantime check out some of the old episodes of Open Season.

OpSource SaaS Summit (Verdict: Great event)

While I was strolling through the SaaS Summit yesterday someone made the comment that the OpSource guys "could always become an events company if things went south with their core business" which I agree with. The event yesterday (and today) was great. Very well done and very professional.

I was on the Integration panel in the afternoon and I think I avoided doing too much damage to my fellow panelists who seemed intent on being living commercials for their companies.

A few interesting things I gleaned: -Taleo is a very cool, fairly large public company that I … Read more

Novell responds to my acquisition questions

I appreciate that John Dragoon, Novell's CMO commented on my post about the company's recent acquisitions. Had I read his blog earlier I probably would have had more insight. And really, I have no desire to pick on Novell...it's just an easy target :>

The fact that John took the time to address this is an example of high-quality, new-school marketing. If you are not part of the conversation you are irrelevant.

The post is here, the full comment below for your reading pleasure.

Dave, Allow me to offer my perspective on your opinions on our … Read more

Desperately trying to be interested in Adobe

I was reading Cote's write-up on the Adobe Engage conference and I just can't get excited about Adobe. Maybe it's because for me, the company still equates to Photoshop?

All of this AIR stuff looks like things people were doing with Macromedia Director back in the late 90's. And while I completely understand that this is easier to use, blah, blah, blah, I just can't get excited.

Anyway, at least Adobe is moving toward open source.

On the other hand, a fantastic technological breakthrough is Specialtys' CookieAlert where you can login and see who has … Read more

Love open source events? How about OSBC and MuleCon Promotions?

The fine folks at InfoWorld Events and MuleSource are offering Negative Approach readers discounts for their upcoming events.

OSBC-March 25-26, 2008, San Francisco Reg code for $200 discount: mulesource Registration https://webreg.events.infoworld.com/osbc

MuleCon-April 1-2, 2008, San Francisco http://www.mulecon.com Mention this blog and get $50 off the MuleCon registration - just email mulecon2008@mulesource.com or call 1-415-229-2065 to register.

Disclosure: I am an employee of MuleSource and speaker at OSBC.

Building on growing platforms

When you are contemplating starting a new software company you want to look at where money gets spent now and where it's going to be spent in the future. That's why startups these days are building their applications on utilities like Amazon S3 (which despite last week's outage, I still believe in) and attempting to monetize Facebook (I am not a big believer in this one though I get the idea.) And while neither of these things may be right, they are better bets than building your infrastructure on dying platforms or betting on outdated technologies.

One product that I use daily is SpanningSync, a simple sync utility that connects iCal and Google calendar. One of the guys there (Charlie is his name, but I couldn't find his title or role) has a very logical and eye-opening take on why they went the way they did.… Read more

Mobile phone price wars--it's about time!

If you want to see people get lit up about a service that they hate, but can't live without, ask them about their mobile phones.

Never mind the dropped calls or the death-grip lock-in, just the outrageous cost is enough to send people into a rage. So, today when Verizon and T-mobile both introduced new flat rate price plans (which are very appealing to heavy users) I would have thought that this would be viewed as a good thing--helping to retain the more valuable customers. Instead, analysts whined that this would undercut pricing. To an extent it will effect … Read more

Open Season Episode 11: Some stuff happened and we did a podcast about it

If you've got a half-hour, we've got a podcast for you. This week on Open Season, Matt Asay, Ashlee Vance and I talk about a whole lot of nothing, including:

My MacBook Air (I am still in love) XenSource Sun Lies and damn lies about open source on Intel's website We made an attempt on this 2 weeks back but our petard was hoisted by a shoddy conference bridge. Technology is only occasionally my friend.

Open Season Episode 11

SaaS-quisitions on the horizon?

The SmoothSpan Blog has a very detailed article outlining the SaaS universe and the likelihood of dominant players taking on aggregation roles.

This is a segment ripe for consolidation--or maybe aggregation as users realize they are locked into individual SaaS apps.

OpSource acquired billing provider LeCayla earlier this month and odds are that won't be their last purchase. OpSource is in a unique position of having critical mass in the SaaS hosting space and there will be lots of companies that they see value in or can pick up if the company can't go it alone.

Taking the … Read more

Fun with my new MacBook Air

I received my MacBook Air (MBA) yesterday and so far I am mostly in love. I'm not big on the whole Apple packaging thing so I will spare you the unboxing details. The MBA is shockingly thin-only slightly thicker than my Blackberry 8830

I have been sick as a dog since my east coast trip and staring at the computer for too long gives me this fantastic vertigo sensation...but nothing can stop me from posting about my new-found love for the MBA.

The Good:

It's the perfect size for a portable computer I mean this in terms … Read more