Today, more and more proprietary software vendors are choosing to go Open Source. Doing this enables them to leverage the community benefits of Open Source, shorten the sales cycle, and gain a competitive advantage over other proprietary products.

However, for those firms considering a switch to Open Source, there are some hard decisions to make with regard to their product architecture. Should they provide only a single Open Source product, and earn revenue from add-on services like support and consulting (RedHat)? Or should they adopt the Open Core model, offering their product under both Open Source and proprietary licenses (MySQL)? Or …

For Open Source projects whose software architecture allows it, inviting developers to extend the core product through add-on modules and plug-ins is a great way to raise interest and awareness and thus kickstart or foster an adoption/contribution cycle. In such a setting, Open Source vendors and their business partners should consider building and maintaining an online marketplace or exchange for add-ons, which will serve as a highly effective distribution and sales channel.

Distribution and Sales Channel

Such a modules marketplace allows business partners and community developers to showcase their work, maximize its visibility and earn money by selling custom modules to end-users.

Typically, you’d find all or some of the following offerings in …

Congratulations to Khailee for getting GroupsMore sold to Groupon (in a record five months since its inception!). He tells me they’re now Groupon Malaysia and Joel (his partner, co-founder of YouthSays) is going to be CEO of Groupon Malaysia. A lot of people instantly said that since Groupon is now in Malaysia, all the other deal sites can go the way of the dodo.

I don’t think so. For a site that does group purchases to be successful, people need to know it exists. Savvy Malaysians have always been into group purchases because a) our currency generally sucks, b) its difficult to get cool stuff shipped to Malaysia. Of course the currency is improving now, and there are virtual postboxes that ship stuff to Malaysia for a small fee.

But I digress. Group purchasing has been happening for years, heck over a decade. I remember …

For a few years, I've tried to recap here some events I've found notable over the past year and offering some guesses on what might be ahead of us. I'm somewhat late on these things this year, due to being busy with other stuff, but I didn't want to break the tradition, no matter how silly my wrong guesses might seem later. And again, others have covered generals, so I'll try to focus on specifics, in particular as they relate to what I do. For a look at what we achieved for Habbo, see my recap post on the Sulake blog.

This time last year Oracle still had not successfully completed the Sun acquisition due to some EC silliness, but that finally happened over the 2010. It seems to be playing about how I expected it to - …

A special extended edition of Tech Messages for 2010-12-22 through 2011-01-04:

• WS-C3560V2-XXXX-X, WS-C3750V2-XXXX-X Series RPS cover and rare power reset – Replacement Recommended
  The RPS cover for wall-mount of the Acc Kits in the BOM was not correct; it should be 22P instead of 14P. The issue is a safety issue for those who choose to wall-mount the RPS. It's found on WK48P/NZ48P that the magjack connector's shielding were short to the test via 2.5v to ground. Adding capton tape underneath Belfuse/Pulse connector to avoid the short via ECO as a short term solution will respin PWB to correct issue.
• WordPress › 3.0.4 Important Security Update
  Time to update!
• …

Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a way of developing computer software applications with less effort than the traditional means.

RAD tools focus on providing code generation and automated testing capabilities with the use of convention over configuration to provide a streamlined workflow to create applications.

Even with the most advanced and easiest to use RAD tools, there are times which the traditional enterprise and the business software development vendors which are having their own implementations and in-house built frameworks are continuously refusing to adopt them.

Most of the misconceptions on the RAD are based on FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) which has been created around the internal complexity of the RAD tools.

…

I wrote a guest column for GigaOm on how open source software, cloud and software as a service are helping to bring about the consumerization of IT: namely bringing simplicity where complexity reigned.  I cited some examples including New Relic, Box.net and Apple.

Open source has gone a long way toward putting power back in the hands of developers, who can download, install and deploy software without having to go through any kind of convoluted sales or budget approval process.  You want MySQL?  You can download and install in 15 minutes, and you don’t have to …

Looks like Oracle is continuing to invest heavily in MySQL and the storage engine eco-system.  They've announced a full MySQL Sunday at the upcoming Oracle Open World Sunday September 19, in San Francisco.  Registration is only $75 which is a bargoon.  I expect this will be bigger than any MySQL conference held to date.  And there's also the JavaOne developer conference and the rest of the Oracle Open World show.

Ok, technically things actually start at noon, but knowing the MySQL crowd, I am sure there will be parties that go well past midnight.  Helan gar!

• Oracle Open World: …

 
A longer version of this story is published at www.opensources.com

Last week, Barnes & Noble announced they would cut the price on their wireless Nook eReader, from $259 to $199 ($149 for a new WiFi-only edition.)  Many thought this was a good opportunity for the third place contender to gain market share.  But within a few hours Amazon beat Barnes & Noble's price by $10, marking down the Kindle …