business model

Twitter is getting into the online shopping business--or at least pointing to places where deals can be had.

The company's new service, aptly named @earlybird, is an official Twitter account that the company plans to feed with deals at both online and offline retailers, as well as "sneak peeks and events." Users who follow the account will see these entries just like any other tweet in their stream.

While it might seem to be a minor offering, @earlybird is notable in that Twitter plans to monetize it. The company is partnering with companies to provide the deals, … Read more

Open-source software had a very good 2009, and all indications are 2010 is on track to be even better.

Enterprises turned to open source to shave money in the economic downturn and are staying with it now to drive greater innovation and productivity.

This brings great hope to open-source vendors, anxious to cash in on open source's rising popularity, but it also introduces some specific challenges as they scale their organizations to meet demand.

Specifically, since support is the lifeblood of any open-source business, how can companies expand their support capabilities while simultaneously scaling profitability? The two don't … Read more

Ars Technica's Ken Fisher recently wrote an impassioned plea to turn off ad-blocking software like AdBlock Plus to save the online publishing industry. His attempt to turn back the clock on digitization, however, would likely accomplish the opposite.

Fisher has a good point: ad-blocking software almost certainly does hurt sites like CNET by denying them revenue. As he points out, "[m]ost [large] sites...are paid on a per view basis," not a click-through basis, which means that ad-blocking software very literally takes money out of the pockets of publishers, leading consumers to "devastat[e]...the … Read more

Competition in the personal computer market is heating up, even as it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish just what we mean when we talk about a PC. Airline flight attendants seem to be able to discern the difference between mobile phones and personal computers in their in-flight announcements, but the vendors who make and sell them increasingly can't.

It is precisely this fuzziness that offers Google and Apple a chance to get a leg up on Microsoft, but is also why Microsoft may be able to cement its lead.

Google is clear about its aims: it wants to get … Read more

Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be managed.

We live in the midst of a digital cornucopia that our brains simply cannot manage without help. Whether it's our 150 Facebook-friend limit or our ability to find and store iTunes songs, we need help processing the sheer abundance of digital goods.

Sure, most of us will take something for free if we can. Just ask the music industry, which has been battered by peer-to-peer piracy.

But not all of us. And not all of the time. … Read more

If there was ever a doubt as to whether open-source software could be big business, Google has eradicated it. The Silicon Valley giant shovels open-source software out the door like Santa Claus, all the while monetizing it with cloud-based services.

Google' strategy is no longer in question. What does remain a question is why more companies aren't following its lead.

Gartner analyst Brian Prentice argues:

By 2020 open source will be so conceptually and practically integrated into the way business is done that the concept of blogging on open source in 2030 will be about as interesting as predicting … Read more

For those entrepreneurs looking to make a living from open-source software, Index Ventures general partner Bernard Dallé has some advice: get thee to a cloud strategy.

Why? At a time when enterprises may be less willing to spend on software, they're increasingly interested in spending on the operation of that software through cloud computing, an interest that can be bought...and sold.

The cloud isn't simply a clever way to provide social-networking services, either. As Dallé suggested in a phone interview on Wednesday, cloud computing may well be the best way to monetize enterprise-facing open-source software.… Read more

In the past week, the open-source business community appears to have reached consensus: making money from open-source software is a bad model, but making money with open source is golden.

This can't be good for Microsoft.

Microsoft has long maintained that as the open-source industry has matured, it has become more and more like the commercial world it sought to leave behind. Fundamental freedoms of open source, like the right to modify source code, are signed away to secure a support contract with Red Hat or another vendor.

In many ways, Microsoft was right. Unfortunately for the Redmond giant, … Read more

With open-source software businesses, you have two options. Actually, three, but the third belongs to Red Hat, and it applies to roughly no one else.

The first option is to sell support for open-source software. This option is generally advocated by those who have never grown a business beyond $10 million. It's a terrible model unless your only aspiration in life is to run a services company.

Hence, the support model might be good for Accenture or systems integrator, if they want to take on the burden of support, but it's a poor model for Red Hat, MindTouch, … Read more