AfterMail's Rod Drury continues his pioneer spirit by fully participating in what is now being called Web 2.0 and what advertising people call dialogue/relationship marketing.
Today Rod has released their first podcast introducing AfterMail. It is said that those who know their subject well are able to explain and discuss it simply and clearly - download it now and you can listen to the Kiwis discussing their product on your way home tonight.
If you'd like to learn more about how to exploit this marketing technique then get in touch with SalePlane solutions' PodCasting consultant: Lee Wilkins.
Why open source software of course!
At least according to MIT's TechnologyReview.com:
Asked to express the importance of open-source software and cheap hardware, Kalanick had to think at first: "It's like asking the inventor how important the light bulb was that was in the room where he did his work. It's so commoditized and such a small portion of what you think about now....But, if it weren't there, a lot of entrepreneurs would be in trouble."
Another takeaway from the article which should give Microsoft plenty to worry about is this:
"We came in substantially less than other solutions," says Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linspire. "It's a one- or two-year rollout period, and now there's some discussion to make this K-12, not just high school." Courting this market has another major benefit, as Carmony points out: "With the education market, you can influence the future of America." (Read: future buyers of software and hardware.)
Looks like my .NET guru team, Tech Head Brothers, have added another feather to their proverbial cap by participating in the Codezone search integration feature of Whidbey - now that's kudos!
Well done guys!
It didn't take long for someone to come and upset Skype - check out VoIPbuster here.
Free calls (Ts&Cs here) to any regular phone in:
Australia
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Denmark
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Greece
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| Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
United Kingdom
United States |
Thanks to Oniryx (Marco) for spotting this!
What is the role of the Mozilla Corporation?
The Mozilla Corporation is responsible for productizing and distributing Firefox, Thunderbird, and related branded products built on the Mozilla open source code base. The Mozilla Corporation's mission, shared by that of the Mozilla Foundation, is to promote choice and innovation on the Internet.
Why has the Mozilla Foundation decided to make this change?
The Mozilla Corporation was established to support the Mozilla Foundation�s mission to ensure choice and innovation on the Internet by leveraging the economic value of Firefox which has resulted from its growing marketshare. By forming a commercial subsidiary, the revenue-generating activities of the new entity can provide funds to support development, testing, and productization of the various Mozilla open source technologies. This benefits both end-users of Firefox and Thunderbird, and developers and others who want to use the Mozilla open source code in various ways. Having the Mozilla Corporation handle revenue-generating activities associated with these products also allows the Mozilla Foundation to achieve its goals while still itself remaining a tax-exempt organization.
However, the Mozilla Corporation is not a typical commercial entity and will only pursue revenue-generating activities that are consistent with offering end-users with the best experience possible.
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It is when a community has strong leadership that one should take notice. This recent development is great news for the FOSS community and a warning sign for their competitors.
Jonathan Schwartz (COO, Sun Microsystems) recently commented during a panel at the AlwaysOn Summit 2005 that when he regularly speaks to CTOs and CIOs who are using Linux and other FOSS tools in the enterprise he asks them did they make this choice and more specifically was it their idea - the answer is often a simple "No".
So why mention the dude with the ponytail? Because as several colleagues remind me it is because businesses prefer to do business with other businesses and the FOSS community is exactly that: a community and in this instance a Foundation.
The move by Mozilla to provide an interface between it's products and the business community will now enable the free flow of transactions in a protocol that is familiar to business making them both comfortable and enthusiastic to embrace the Mozilla FOSS products.
All in all, a pretty important and bold move that I think has been inevitable what with the mass debate regarding how to make FOSS work for business.
There is another commentary over here that is worth reading as well.