Commercial Open Source Software

IDC’s recent prediction that Android apps would quintuple is well in line with a former AdMob statement expecting a huge holidays season for the Android platform (a prediction done much before the Google’s AdMob acquisition news was out).

HTC has positioned itself as the Android market’s leader, as results clearly from the Google’s decision to go with HTC to enter into the phone-sales game (see the early review of the Nexus One). But having had a closer look at the HTC Tattoo, one of the latest HTC Android handset, based on the most popular Android platform today (Android 1.6).

Continue reading ‘Android Strong Growth and HTC Tattoo, Android for the Masses’

Funambol has just launched the latest edition of its Code Sniper program - a program meant to encourage development by the community of new components - now also  for the open source mobile cloud.

Differently from the Phone Sniper program, aimed at getting micro-contributions, Code Sniper rewards more complex contributions. Stefano Maffulli, Funambol Community Manager, told me more about the “Funambol way“, maybe other vendors leading open source projects could find it inspirational.
Continue reading ‘Open Source Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Funambol Code Sniper Goes 2.0′

Funambol just announced the availability of Funambol v8, a redesigned AJAX version of the MyFUNAMBOL web portal, a proprietary product tailored for carriers based on their open source piece of software.

The differences between Funambol community and carriers’ editions is key to understand Funambol business model. Knowing the importance of external contributions I asked Stefano Maffulli, Funambol Community Manager, to tell me about how  he passed the message to the Funambol community.

Continue reading ‘How Funambol Walks the Commercial Open Source Rope’

James Dixon keeps updating his “Beekeeper model“, analyzing and discussing open source business strategies, now giving a closer view at the importance of the productization process.

Commercial open source, as James states, exists just to deliver software as whole product: an out-of-the-box, easy-to-consume, packaged-and-delivered, risk-free solution.

Italian whole organic product, by fensterbme

Continue reading ‘Open Source Business Strategy: About the Open Source Whole Product Concept’

Nokia, in order to take to the next level the Maemo platform - the open source software that powers mobile devices such as the N810 Internet Tablet - is now looking for people.

Nokia aims at extending the platform’s capabilities, also by adding a Qt-based application development environment to complement the existing GTK+. If you wish to join the Maemo SW team in Finland, India or United States take a moment to read open positions.

Volantis Systems few days ago announced the availability of Volantis Mobility Server Community Edition version 5.1. The new release aims at bringing the power of Web 2.0 to the mobile world, including optimizations for the iPhone.

Volantis Mobility Server was released under the GPLv3 almost one year ago, so I asked Mark Watson, Volantis Systems CEO, about how things are going, and how going open source helped.

Continue reading ‘Open Source Mobile: Volantis Mobility Server 5.1 released, an interview with Mark Watson’

AOL Joins Symbian Foundation - AOL joins Symbian, and also Intrinsyc supports Symbian Foundation. Symbian Foundation gathers attention.

Warner Music is almost there - Philippe Aigrain reports that Warner is offering a non-commercial voluntary blanket license solution to students in exchange for the payment of a fee. The license is a covenant not to sue them for access and sharing usage.

Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) Agreement on Procurement in Support of Interoperability and Open Standards - At the close of the final day of the 3rd Internet Governance Forum in
Hyderabad, India, the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) released this agreement. Under the procurement agreement, governments, publicly funded and non-profit institutions agree to promote interoperability and accessibility through the use of open standards.

Openmoko FreeRunner: Optimized for Android Open Source - Koolu is optimizing Google Android platform on FreeRunner, a beta version will be soon available.

Symbian Foundation Gets More Members - The foundation announced that Japan’s third-largest wireless carrier, SoftBank, Renesas Technology, and five other companies are on board now.

Funambol Developer Workshop 2008 - Funambol Conference 2008 will be held in Milan next week on the 25th of November. Registrations are open.

MAPOS’ 08 - an event that aims at creating a platform for discussion within the mobile industry - will take place next 9-10 December in London. Among hot topics the should we open or close question.

This seems to be the question on everyone’s lips at the moment. Whilst certain players move towards open source, others stand up and reaffirm their belief that proprietary is the only way forward. Whichever path you follow, there can be no denying that which mobile operating system to follow is proving to be one of the most controversial questions in the industry.  With this topic set to be debated at MAPOS 2008, this year’s conference is shaping up to be the most important yet. Representatives of Proprietary and Open Source will come together to debate the future of the industry. Is the future all open as supporters of LiMo, Moblin, Android and Symbian seem to think it is or do Microsoft and Apple still have a dominating role in the future of operating systems?

MAPOS 08 registrations are open, but it is not for free.

Technorati Tags: MAPOS 08, open source mobile,

OSiM USA returns for the second year in San Francisco, USA on the 11-12 March 2009.

OSIM USA 2009 is part of the OSiM World Series: the only event series in the world dedicated exclusively to open source in mobile.

This year breakout sessions designed for application developers and free exhibition passes available to independent developers.

As seen with past editions specific workshops on open source mobile will be part of the event.

Technorati Tags: OSIM USA 2009, OSIM, Open Source Mobile