Subject Matters

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I installed Pocket Blog at my Qtek 110 and I am writing this post using it. Now l can post wherever l am. True meaning of ‘communicator’ word now is much more clear.

Having at moment some troubles with it I still think I will make it work properly.

I was offline during few weeks busy with getting an engagement and participating at an industry event. I also spent some time for studying SugarCRM and Compiere, an open source enterprise applications for SME. I was very impressed of both but on different reasons. SugarCRM excited me by its full demo system available on-line. I had no opportunity to install Compiere, but detailed features and architecture descriptions makes very strong impression to the guy who is at the top of the notch ERP systems consulting. Compiere core was originally designed and written by Jorg Janke who appeared to stay closely to the origins of SAP solution and spent some time with development and localization of Oracle Applications.

Open source enterprise applications waked my old thoughts about own business. Recently I had a meeting with distributor who is too small in terms of staff and revenue but needs really advanced ERP features and proven architecture for a low cost. Sounded like no sense until I recalled Compiere with its Oracle 10g database, Java interface and advanced functionality. Why not? So now I am asking myself question is it wise enough to find some partners and a few young employees (who actually could be same persons) and jumpstart into business with Compiere implementation and customization while continue to work full time with my current employer. Tough question that needs careful investigation and analysis.

Hey you! Yes, you! What do you think about this? Welcome to the Comments section!

Brad Feld quotes Jeff Hawkins from his book “On Intelligence”: “One of the tricks of entrepreneurial success is that you must jump head first into a new field before it is one hundred percent clear you can be successful. Timing is important. If you jump too early, you struggle. If you wait until the uncertainty lifts, it’s too late.”

QuirksBlog has a detailed discussion.

Corporate RSS - Applied has some ideas “for corporate RSS feeds to external constituents including; your partners, your vendors, your customers, remote employees, etc. “

Kevin Werbach provides interesting summary of what we are seeing around us: “Something that gets me quite jazzed these days is the way so many innovations are linking up and leveraging one another. It’s not just, ‘hey, check out that cool company!’ Blogs, search-based innovations, tags, and so forth allow both new startups and established platforms like Google, Amazon, and Yahoo! to build on one another. The emergent whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

SiliconBeat published a list of applications which are used by SpikeSource to run its business. According to SpikeSource’s policy all applicaitons are open source.

They run their whole website using OSS. Features include:
- discussion forums - PhpBB
- trouble tickets - OTRS
- Naming directory - Open LDAP
- Web Server - Apache
- Servlet container - Tomcat
- Database - MySQL
- Search - Nutch

They use OSS on intranet. Here is the list:
- MoinMoin wiki for capturing processes, policies, feature requirements, evolving design etc.
- Bugzilla for bug tracking
- Subversion for source code versioning
- Intranet Portal - JetSpeed
- Web email client - SquirrelMail
- Naming Directory - OpenLDAP
- email server - Courier-IMAP

Desktops:
- Operating System and desktop - RHAT, SuSE
- email client - Ximian Evolution
- desktop productivity tools - Open Office
- Browser - Mozilla, FireFox
- Source code editor - Eclipse

Customer relations:
- SugarCRM

Chris Jablonski about Open Source Business Conference opening:

This morning kicked off the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, where a mixed crowd of IT enterprise customers and vendors, lawyers, and venture capitalists rubbed elbows as they contemplated open source market strategies.
In his keynote, Larry Augustin, CEO of Medsphere, left everyone with no doubt that the next frontier for open source software development is the applications space. Augustin talked about four successful models, each representing a different application category: sugarCRM, Compiere, Asterisk, and VistA (the technology his company first deployed to the private sector) and looked at what they had in common to come up with six rules that identify a ripe opportunity for open source: (1) Look at heavy applications that are traditionally a big expense and take years to implement. These include, CRM, ERP, PBX, and EHR (electronic health records). (2) The presence of big proprietary traditional competitors with big upfront software licensing fees that make it hard to get started. (3) A large, enthusiastic free user base so you don’t have to spend a lot of time educating them and the market about what you are doing, giving you sales leverage. (4) An enthusiastic developer ecosystem–you have a community of people that participate in some way. (5) There is a big enterprise market opportunity: for healthcare, the market is to grow to $25B IT market by 2007. (6) You have a big under-penetrated SMB market opportunity.

Wired has more details on Nicholas Negroponte’s idea:

The $100 laptop will not only be something to own and feel empowered by, it will also be portable and a tool for collaboration. Students will be able to access thousands of textbooks electronically and learn how to program, one of the best ways to “learn how to learn,” according to my MIT colleagues Seymour Papert and Mitch Resnick. So in addition to using readily available applications, young people might also develop software suited to their own purposes. And when students attach cameras, microphones, and printers, the basic laptop will become a foundation for innovation, a tool in tune with their different interests and talents.

Displays are one of the most expensive components of a laptop - typically costing manufacturers about $170 - and thus, they present one of our highest hurdles. Two up-and-coming technologies help the cause, however. The first is a thin, folding screen in development at MIT’s Things That Think consortium. Unlike typical LCDs, this approach uses rear-­projection, and with its fold-away design, a laptop could be quite small. Best of all, a 12-inch screen of this variety could cost as little as $30.

The second promising technology would allow us to keep the current laptop form and is based on lowering the cost of thin-film transistors used in LCDs. This approach uses a nascent technique called printed electronics to print transistor patterns with special semi­conducting inks. There are about two dozen projects under way at startups like E Ink and Kovio (I was a founder of both), as well as at large corporations focused on adapting the economics of printing to the manufacture of TFTs and displays. These efforts could lead to 12-inch displays that also cost about $30.

MSNBC adds:

Here’s the MIT team’s current recipe: Put the laptop on a software diet; use the freely distributed Linux operating system; design a battery capable of being recharged with a hand crank; and use newly developed “electronic ink” or a novel rear-projected image display with a 12-inch screen. Then, give it Wi-Fi access, and add USB ports to hook up peripheral devices.

Most importantly, take profits, sales costs and marketing expenses out of the picture. “The technology challenge is real, and you need to make some breakthroughs, but most of the money is saved in other ways,” said Negroponte, who pitched the project in January at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the annual confab of global powerbrokers.

Negroponte has also met with Chinese and Brazilian officials to discuss expected orders and production in those countries, which would create local jobs. Two prototypes have been built, and test units could be shipped by the middle of next year. The project would essentially be nonprofit, with about $90 covering hardware for each computer and an extra $10 for contingencies or a small profit margin depending on how each government’s order is structured.

Wired News adds: “The mission: to make laptops as ubiquitous as cell phones in technology-deprived regions. Negroponte’s pitch: The cost of a laptop comes in far lower than a child’s textbook expenses for the computer’s lifespan.”

A Slashdot discussion Simputer: “Picopeta sold 2,000 units over the past year, while Encore Software sold 2,000 Simputers. Only 10% of the devices were bought for rural areas, which the device was originally designed for. The reason? The companies need to sell quite a few simplistic monochrome devices to allow for the low price tag of $200.”

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

San Francisco will tomorrow become the first jurisdiction in the country to declare that bloggers should be treated no differently than traditional media. That’s what the San Francisco City Attorney will state at a meeting of the city’s Board of Supervisors. The Board is considering an amendment to the city ordinance that would require full disclosure of who is paying for political messages.

The proposed language exempts “news stories, commentaries or editorials distributed through any newspaper, radio station, television station or other recognized news medium” unless the medium is “owned or controlled” by a candidate, political party or committee.

So are blogs a “recognized news medium?” Yes, the City Attorney will say at the Supervisors’ meeting tomorrow. What’s not clear is whether independent individuals who are paid to do partisan blogging would fall under the press exemption. For instance, would a campaign consultant be able to blog without disclosure? What if he or she were not being paid directly by a campaign, party or committe? What if someone were being paid for technical consulting and was “volunteering” to publish dirt on the opposition? I couldn’t reach the City Attorney’s office for comment.

…continues

As Google goes into video blogging, Microsoft goes into video download service for handheld devices.

Microsoft has finalized a service that has been in testing which lets PDA, Smartphone and Portable Media Center owners download content from outlets such as MSNBC, Fox Sports, IFILM, DIY and CNBC to their mobile devices.

Some of the content is available for free, but a premium membership unlocks much more at a cost of only $20/year. Subscribers set up a profile online to determine which content they want to receive and it’s automatically downloaded to the Windows Media Player 10 library on their PC. From there it can be synchronized with PDAs, Smartphones and Portable Media Centers. The only requirement is Windows Media Player 10 on both the PC and mobile device.

For more information visit the MSN Video Downloads site here: http://www.msnvideodownloads.com/

[ Via ВargainPDA.com ]

Personally I found Microsoft’s move to be very smart. I don’t remember their other initiative with service to be placed ahead of emerging market in such a nice way. Think about it. Many of people waiting for boarding at airports - for example - could be interested to play with (and perhaps pay for) this service. Most of them usually do not have time for looking for and watching video with more common devices, including notebook or desktop computers.

If you have a Wi-Fi connectivity device (most of which are Windows-powered Pocket PCs) chances you will use this service will rise. And if you still don’t have a Wi-Fi you will give a good thought to purchase one. That makes a good sense for new markets development, which is the right thing for Microsoft’s further expansion.

Paul Graham writes about “Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas”:

This summer, as an experiment, some friends and I are giving seed funding to a bunch of new startups. It’s an experiment because we’re prepared to fund younger founders than most investors would. That’s why we’re doing it during the summer– so even college students can participate.

We know from Google and Yahoo that grad students can start successful startups. And we know from experience that some undergrads are as capable as most grad students. The accepted age for startup founders has been creeping downward. We’re trying to find the lower bound.

The deadline has now passed, and we’re sifting through 227 applications. We expected to divide them into two categories, promising and unpromising. But we quickly saw that we needed a third: promising people with unpromising ideas.

Google Experiments with Video Blogging PunkOfLinux writes “TechWeb has an article about Google’s plans to start a video service that sounds similar to Picasa. Excerpt: ‘While there’s no formal announcement yet, Google co-founder Larry Page said Monday that the well-known search engine concern would soon let the general public upload self-produced videos to Google’s servers, partly in an effort to learn more about how to more efficiently search and display information about video-based data.’”

John Robb writes about Joe Reger’s new venture:

The concept is simple. Data is usually locked up in monolithic applications (CRM, ERP, etc.). Application seats are expensive. Training is expensive. Etc. People that need the data often can’t get to it.

What if human readable data flows (via RSS) could be generated by these applications? It would allow the development of easy to read weblogs (that republished these RSS flows) that almost everyone in the company would find valuable. The combinations are almost limitless and the flow is completely automated.

The flip side is also extremely valuable. Using a weblog model of data entry, it would become much easier to train people to enter data in a timely fashion. Further, they get immediate feedback on their efforts since the data they post is transformed into an entry on the blog.

To be honest that seems a little bit eccentric for me as ERP consultant. In ERP applications users typicaly get regular output in the form of report. Alerts are another form of output for irregular information. Then there is one more way of getting information called query. I can hardly imagine these to be replaced by RSS. What I am thinking about is typical scenario where some user is processing each transaction on a one by one basis. Then RSS-like presentation could be very interesting to think about. The examples could be order approval, cost account/element assignment,  order shipment, etc.

But as for CRM it’s quite another matter. As Reger explains:

Let’s take the example of a sales force working at a Fortune 100 company. This sales force works on long-cycle consultative sales that generally take 60-90 days to complete.

Traditional Blogging:

Members of the sales force make blog entries each time they talk to or visit a potential client. This practice is valuable because it creates a repository of sales tactics and results.

dataBlogging:

Just like in traditional blogging, members of the sales force make entries each time they visit a potential client. However, and this is the key, because their blog entries have additional data fields on them they track quantifiable information like Chance of Close, Effectiveness of Pitch, Hours Invested, etc.

Graphs are generated from the extended data attached to each blog. For example, an Effectiveness of Pitch vs. Hours Invested graph will determine whether spending more time selling is worthwhile.

The Advanced Data Search feature is used to find entries based on quantifiable data searches… in much the same way that somebody might query a database. However, it is done simply through a web interface by anybody.

The extended data for each sales call is published in RSS feeds, meaning that other enterprise systems can consume it… a simple integration between the dataBlogging system and more complex and possibly more difficult-to-use legacy systems.

Alorie Gilbert for ZDNet:

The Oracle-SAP rivalry is nothing new, but Ellison’s acquisition strategy is infusing the struggle with new vigor, and may redefine an industry.

800-CEO-READ Blog (Jack Covert) recommends “A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age” by Dan Pink:

A Whole New Mind looks at the right brain/left brain differences and shows how those historical issues are radically changing. As I learned during a weekend in Vermont with Tom Peters, Dan Pink also believes that: “The MFA is the new MBA.” Pink points out that design and traditional “right brain” thinking will be the course of the future. The first part of the book gives a primer on how the brain works with great stories from Pink on how his brain was scanned and stimulated and how the different parts of his brain responded. He then goes into pages and pages of supporting stories and examples from his extensive research. Excellent reading!

Pink states that we are entering the Conceptual Age and to prepare for it we need to improve six essential abilities. They are: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. These abilities are the chapter heading for the final six chapters. At the end of each of the chapters, Pink has a Portfolio which is a combination of tools, exercises, and further reading culled from his research and travels that can help you sharpen each sense.

Google Prefetching for Mozilla Browsers kv9 writes “A post on GoogleBlog reveals that Google has enabled results prefetching for Mozilla based browsers, which means that the top results of queries are being loaded in the background and pages will load faster. More info on the Mozilla Prefetching FAQ and the Google Webmaster FAQ”

Open Source Social Bookmarking Service comforteagle writes “This past week I launched an open source social bookmarking competitor to delicio.us - de.lirio.us. After running it for a while open to the public it appears to be running relatively bug free so this is the invitation to the Slashdot crowd. The code is entirely open and the content is cc licensed, so I’m sure it won’t take too long for folks to cook up some additional tools aside from the blogging feature. For those not familiar the meme is social bookmarking, which is basically a service to share bookmarks publicly instead (or in addition to) only within your browser. There are lots of other additional benefits, but that’s the gist of it. More details here and here.”

Tom Foremski writes for SiliconValleyWatcher:

I was at HP Labs Tuesday morning, chatting with Josh Tyler and Philippe Debaty about their work in trying to determine how people will use camera phones. A primary goal of HP Labs is to be able to predict novel uses of consumer technologies and develop supporting computer products or services.

But in today’s world, these researchers are realising that they cannot do things the old way, and that they have to get out of the labs.

If you want to discover aggregate social behaviors around photos and sharing, take a look at Flickr’s millions of users. There are communities on Flickr that could not have been predicted. And this is true of all true platforms–in the current sense of technology platforms for groups: unpredictable behaviors and communities will arise.

Using 20 HP Labs researchers is not going to reveal many, if any, novel uses. How many people using a platform technology would it take to flag the potential for large aggregate social behaviors, I asked? ..

Clearly, these researchers will need to change their approach. They should be out on the Internet crouching in the bushes and taking notes on what people are doing, and then determine new product development. In fact, these should be boom times for anthropologists. Surely, now is their time(!)

Spotting potentially large aggregate social behaviors, and being the first to monetise them, is going to be the name of the game in the consumer digital space.