The natural state of a market doesn't appear to be broad competition between Lilliputian-sized competitors. Rather, markets tend to crystallize around a few dominant players.
Ironically, this is as true of open source as it is of proprietary software.
In September I asked if open source can monopolize a market. ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn and others gave great feedback, but the market since then has provided the best evidence:
Yes, we can have an open-source monopoly (at least, a natural monopoly). In fact, this may actually be the normal state of a healthy open-source market.
If we think of markets broadly, e.g., the "e-mail/messaging market," we're unlikely to have open source dominate such a market in the near term, though with Linux, Firefox, and other open-source projects gaining momentum, full market monopoly may not be too far off.
If we constrain a market to just open-source competitors, however, we're already there.
Within the open-source market, Red Hat dominates Linux. Firefox dominates browsers. VLC dominates media players. MySQL dominates databases. Android dominates mobile operating systems. SugarCRM dominates CRM. And so on.
Name the market, and you're almost certainly going to come up with just one dominant open-source project or vendor. There are exceptions, of course: Drupal and Joomla duke it out over supremacy in Web content management. We'll call them a duopoly. But these exceptions prove the rule:
Open source loves a monopoly.
This shouldn't be surprising. While the theory of unfettered competition sounds great, it's actually hard for mere mortals to process.
For example, when I walk into a grocery store, I don't want 30,000 cereals competing to be my morning meal. I want just a few. (Ever notice that the same cereals sold when you were a kid persist on those store shelves? We don't seem to want much competition over time, either.)
It is convenient for open source to think itself different, and to rally the troops against "Darth Vaders of IT." But that's all it is: convenient. A convenient fiction that makes us feel that this time it will be different, that this time it's all about kumbaya and the customer.
The customer doesn't want 50 vendors providing support for one open-source project. It wants to invest in Red Hat, Canonical, or Novell, and probably just one of those. It wants Android or Symbian, MySQL, or Postgres. And so on.
Manageable choice. Choice that starts to look an awful lot like monopoly. It's not that customers want to have a market dominated by a single vendor. It's just that they'd rather have a limited choice of a few good vendors, rather than an unwieldy choice between scads of competing vendors.
The difference is code transparency, process transparency, data transparency, standards transparency, and so on. This lets customers buy into a limited choice, but have a more open option for exiting that choice. It's a distinction that is more meaningful in theory than in practice, but it's still worth something.
Just not as much as we thought.
We have reached a critical inflection point for open source.
With everyone from Qualcomm to UBS to Microsoft embracing open source in one shape or another, the question is no longer "why" to use open source, but rather "how."
Because of this changing mindset around open-source adoption, we no longer need evangelists encouraging open-source adoption. Adoption is a given. It's the default.
No, what we need now are those that can illustrate how to derive the most benefit from the inevitable adoption of open source.
This is perhaps evident in MindTouch's just-released survey of the most influential people in open source today, as voted by over 50 top-level open-source business executives. People like Larry Augustin, Marten Mickos, Dries Buytaert, Mark Radcliffe, and Andrew Aitken make the list. (Note: I am honored to be on the list as well.) They are there not because they're open-source cheerleaders, but because they have helped vendors and customers alike understand how to get the most from open-source investments.
The trend away from evangelism is also apparent in the types of industry events that still draw an audience. The Linux Foundation's inaugural LinuxCon amassed over 700 attendees, in large part because it promised (and delivered) tutorial-like education on how to get the most from Linux deployments.
In a similar manner, O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), Open Source Business Conference (Disclosure: I'm program chair for OSBC), ApacheCon, EclipseCon, Red Hat Summit, and other such events remain popular because they give attendees real-world insight into how to get the most from open source.
The message used to be, "Open source is powerful! You should try it." The market got the message, to the point that open source is a de facto component of virtually every technology vendor's strategy and is reaching ubiquity in enterprise deployments, too.
It's time for the next phase of open source, the practical phase where we focus on how to deploy open source, not why.
This is what I (unsuccessfully) tried to say in my "Free Software Is Dead. Long Live Open Source!" post. I certainly wasn't saying that GPL-licensed free software is dead, or should die. Rather, I was (and am) arguing that pragmatism is the new order of the day: how real companies and developers derive real benefits from real software.
No ideology. Just adoption.
That's the message that resonates today and, frankly, always has been the right message for open source. It's what is driving widespread open-source adoption and will continue to do so, provided we can effectively help would-be adopters understand "how" now that they've bought into "why."
Some believe that Twitter has the power to change big events like Iranian elections. I think that its strength may be in much smaller, but still significant, ways.
In fact, I was the matchmaker recently between a Barcelona cabbie and an American employee of a pharmaceutical company. Well, a matchmaker between the cabbie and this lady's BlackBerry, anyway.
It happened like this:
I have a Twitter search in TweetDeck that alerts me every time the word "Asay" is used on Twitter. (I need to be able to track down libel somehow!)
On August 30, I saw this tweet:
Hi! I'm a taxi driver from Barcelona. Somebody knows Jennifer Asay? She works for (pharmaceutical company). I've her Balckberry [sic].
I happen to be married to a Jennifer Asay, but not this one. So I looked up her name on the Web and quickly found her on LinkedIn. I reached out to her there to give her the e-mail address of the taxi driver, which he provided in his tweet. I also replied to him to give him her e-mail address. No big deal, right?
On Wednesday, I heard back from Raúl, the taxi driver:
Hi! I am the taxidriver from Barcelona.
She has found me thanks to you.
I will be with her for I will give back its telephone.
Thank you very much by your work.
Raúl
Nice, right? It gets better. Today, I heard from Jennifer, and it sounds like everything worked out, thanks to the power of Twitter (and LinkedIn):
I can't tell you how grateful I am that you reached out to me....by a miracle, Raúl brought me my BlackBerry today!
What are the odds? In our increasingly networked world, the odds are getting shorter all the time.
Again, it's a simple story, but one rich in possibilities too. Think about it. A twittering taxi driver reaches out to the massive echo chamber that is the Web and is heard by a complete stranger in Utah who also uses Twitter (me), who then turns to LinkedIn to find the sought-for person and connects them over e-mail.
There are lots of problems in the world. Communication--at least the possibility of communication--isn't one of them.
P.S. There's a very good chance that I've now ruined Jennifer's life by getting her back in touch with her BlackBerry addiction, but I want this story to have a happy ending.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay. And if you find my iPhone, please tweet it. :-)
For all the rancor between opposing technology camps--Microsoft vs. the open-source community, Apple vs. Microsoft, etc.--there's a lot more symbiosis going on than meets the eye. In fact, it's hard to imagine Apple without Microsoft, open source without Microsoft, and so on, as Harry McCracken suggests in MacWorld (not online at time of writing).
PC users...have long benefited hugely from the existence of Macs. Microsoft and PC manufacturers have cribbed so many of Apple's good ideas that it's tough to imagine what Windows machines would look like today if the Mac had never existed.
For years, however, that debt went largely unpaid. The PC platform finally started giving back in 2006, when the first Intel-based Macs shipped and the Mac essentially became a PC--and a really good one at that. Intel's mammoth investments in chips are sustainable only because its processors end up in most of the world's Windows PCs. Mac users reap the same technological windfall even though it's the Windows majority that provides the economies of scale.
Of course, Microsoft also propped up Apple's waning fortunes back in 1997 with a $150 million investment and, more importantly, a commitment to build Mac versions of Office and Internet Explorer. Without Microsoft's software on Apple's machines, they arguably would have been much less palatable to the general public.
Not that these two companies are alone in their curious symbiosis. For example, where would open source be without Microsoft? After all, it is Microsoft that helped to create a standardized hardware platform (Intel) for both "desktops" and servers, which paved the way for Linux, but it is also Microsoft that consistently sets the bar, at least on the "desktop," that open-source projects strive to meet and exceed.
Microsoft, in turn, owes a growing debt to open source, and is increasingly getting involved with open source, most recently releasing an open-source software development kit for Bing to help developers write Mac OS X and Cocoa Touch (iPhone) applications. Linux is pushing Microsoft to innovate again in the server and mobile markets, while a host of open-source applications, databases, and middleware challenge it on the Web, "desktop," and mobile.
Open source, whether in Mozilla's (Firefox) hands or Google's (Chrome), is also challenging Apple and Microsoft to innovate again in browser technology, which, in turn, Apple is enabling, at least, in Google's case, through its own open-source WebKit technology.
Strange world, technology. On the ground, there are ideological skirmishes between rival camps of customers. In the boardroom, plots are hatched to ridicule the competition.
But in reality, Microsoft needs Apple needs open source needs Google needs....You get the picture.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Twitter has become an excellent way to quickly scan headlines. It's terrible at just about everything else. It's hard to have a coherent discussion in 140-character soundbites, and even harder when the architecture of Twitter is set to "broadcast" rather than "discourse." But maybe, just maybe, Twitter's not to blame. We are.
After all, Twitter is simply a creation of our society, and reflects our priorities.
Not all of society, of course. After all, as The New York Times reported, teenagers, usually technology's early adopters, hardly use Twitter at all, with only 11 percent of people aged 11 to 17 using the service. They are, however, heavily into Facebook, preferring to share with friends rather than talk at strangers.
A generational thing?
Perhaps. But I think the technology we build and use says a lot about society.
Competition from Bing, Ask, and other search engines is just one click away and likely equally good for Google users, yet we stick with Google. Why? Because it's fast, free, and has never disdained its users with a cluttered interface. Many of us were with Google early on and continue to reward its early respect for its customers. We're a loyal people that likes a crowd.
This phenomenon is hinted at in personal computers, too. While I'm part of a rising group of people who prefers the Mac to Microsoft Windows, I'm also in a distinct minority, according to data from Net Applications. The reality is that most people look at their computer the way they do toilet cleaner: necessary to get a job done but not anything to get worked up about.
Back to business. As well as open source is doing in enterprise IT, the reality is that CIOs and CTOs don't get too worked up about freedom and such. There's a very good reason that IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft dominate enterprise software, and "choice" is not it. These vendors simplify purchasing decisions by providing limited, but still good, choices.
Business, in other words, is business, not religion. OpenOffice is nearly as good as Microsoft Office in most ways, and better in a few. But it still captures anemic market share because it's simply not worth the bother for most enterprises or consumers. (Firefox, on the other hand, is, and continues to gain market share because we value the increased options its add-on library brings us.)
Open source is absolutely getting adopted, but only where it accomplishes tangible goals like cost reduction and increased productivity. As a society, we don't seem to want to waste hours of the work day fighting ideological battles. We just want to get work done.
Well, except for when we're furiously friending on Facebook during work hours, costing employers as much as 1.5 percent of productivity. You see, we're not all work and no play.
Which, incidentally, suggests that there just might be something to attempts by IBM and others to marry social software with enterprise IT. Our work lives are increasingly blended with our personal lives. They're just about the same thing.
All of which must increasingly be done in real time, as Twitter, instant messaging, SMS/texting, and other immediate or near-immediate technologies suggest. Even e-mail, which used to be considered "fast" communication, has moved to mobile devices so that it's omnipresent and, hence, that much quicker.
All of which raises the question, "Why are you still reading this post?" After all, you've spent 3,000 characters here in which time you could have already plowed through 21 tweets. Think of all the headlines you could have read. :-)
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Some in the open-source camp would have you believe that open source is an all-or-nothing proposition. For such people, to believe that Linux makes for a superior server operating system is also to dedicate oneself to using open source for business applications, personal productivity, mobile, and likely brushing one's teeth. Open source on a proprietary platform like Mac OS X? Perish the thought!
But life is more complicated than that, and it turns out that there is exceptional open-source software for the Mac (or for Windows, for that matter).
The H Online has kicked off a nice "Open Source Stars for Mac OS X" series, one that I'd recommend all Mac users review. But for those who just want to know the best of the basics, here are my favorites:
- Firefox (Web browser) - Given Firefox's availability for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, this one won't be a surprise to anyone, but if you haven't used it lately, do give it a try. It continues to be the most feature-rich Web browser due to its large and variegated add-on community.
- Adium (instant messaging) - We will use Adium in heaven. Not only does it let me dress up my icon in an Arsenal uniform, but it manages all of my different instant messaging accounts (AIM, YIM, MSN, Skype, Facebook, Gtalk, and even Twitter/Identi.ca). It's like Trillian for Windows, only about one trillion times better.
- Zimbra (e-mail) - While geared toward enterprise-class messaging, you can use Zimbra (either the Web client or desktop or, in my case, both) for personal e-mail, as well. With the ability to extend its functionality through Zimlets and a Web user interface that continues to be best in class, Zimbra rocks.
- OpenOffice.org (office productivity) - I don't use this open-source alternative to Microsoft Office for word processing or spreadsheets, in part because I rarely use Word or Excel except for contracts and the occasional spreadsheet, two things with which I don't want to risk file format compatibility. But I actually prefer OpenOffice's presentation program to PowerPoint. It has some functionality that PowerPoint lacks.
- Handbrake (video converter/ripper) - I travel a lot and want my movies to travel with me, without having to carry DVDs around with me. So I rip them to my hard drive with Handbrake. It's a tremendously powerful (because it's so simple) program. It's now available on Linux and Windows, but it grew up on the Mac and is still best on OS X, in my opinion. Get it. It was created by angels.
- VLC (media player) - If it has a codec, VLC will play it. Heck, VLC will probably play it if the file even remotely resembles video or audio. It just works, and it works with everything.
- Audacity (audio editor) - Have a music file that you want to convert to a ringtone for your Blackberry? Or simply want to clean up that podcast before you publish it? Audacity is powerful and fairly easy to use.
- Seashore (image editor) - Seashore doesn't have nearly as many features as Adobe's Photoshop, but if you want a basic image editor with more-than-basic functionality, check out Seashore. Based on Gimp, Seashore is easy to use, though I do wish it had image transformations. I do so like making my pictures look even more cartoonish.
There you have it. That's the basic list of open-source applications I use on my Mac. I use them because they work, and in some cases work exceptionally well, far better than their proprietary equivalents.
This, incidentally, is also why I prefer the Mac. Life is too short to use a given application simply because it's open source (or Microsoft, or whatever). Use what works. Increasingly, this will lead you to use open source. But for me, the Mac is still the best desktop platform available, period. I'm therefore loving the combination of Mac OS X and a variety of open-source applications.
Maybe you will, too.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Did we like music more back when we had to pay for it in bulk?
That's essentially the question writer Nick Carr asks in yet another provocative post on his Rough Type blog. "Slanted and Enchanted" revels in the one-hit wonder but also asks if we are losing something by dumping albums for tracks.
I've suggested that artists may find new ways to more deeply engage their fans by focusing on singles rather than albums, but there's something to Carr's logic:
(Credit:
iTransistor)
Today, we're quick to dismiss those ancient days of "scarcity" and to celebrate our current "abundance," but scarcity had something going for it: it encouraged a deep engagement in listening to a particular piece of music, across the expanse of an album, and it also encouraged, in the artist, an interest in rewarding that engagement. I would like to get back the money I spent on records in my youth, but I would not give up the experience that money bought me.It's the deep, attentive engagement that the Web is draining away, as we fill our iTunes library with tens of thousands of "tracks" at little or no cost. What the Web tells us, over and over again, is that breadth destroys depth. Just hit Shuffle.
There is some truth to this, but I'm not sure it matters as much as Carr implies. For every Blonde Redhead ("Dr. Strangeluv" is a wonderful track) that I casually buy and then will probably forget, there's also the Band of Horses or Arcade Fire that I increasingly find myself deeper and deeper into, track by 99-cent track.
I'm simply not ready to invest in an album yet. But I've already spent the equivalent of an album, tasting around the edges of both bands, getting myself ready to hit the "Complete my album" button in iTunes.
The singles culture, in other words, is making it easier for me to experiment with a band, to "date it," if you will, before I "marry it." It's also letting me go very broad with bands that I already like: to pay the band to experiment. (I've never met a Radiohead /Thom Yorke or Morrissey single that I wouldn't buy, though the quality of the tracks varies wildly.)
I've never believed in albums as a complete "oeuvre" in the way that some artists insist they must be. Albums have long felt like a way for the music industry and artists to sneak in weak songs and get the consumer to pay for them. When was the last time you felt that every song on an album was equally great?
Yes, some like Pink Floyd's "The Wall" or Queensryche's "Operation: Mindcrime" are definitely meant to be listened to as a complete piece, but most albums don't fit this "rock opera" genre, and the singles world, while potentially shallow, is also a great way to enrich one's experience with a band.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
The business intelligence community has made much of its ability to transform the way enterprises operate, and even the way the world works. Open source takes this to the next level, as OStatic recently described. And yet, as exciting as open-source business intelligence is, it's not what gets me out of bed every morning before sunrise. What drove me out of bed to climb 2,474 feet on my mountain bike this morning is the personal intelligence movement or, more accurately, the personal data movement.
The data behind my morning ride
It used to be that the more ambitious among us managed our time and goals with a Franklin day planner. "Goal: Lose 20 pounds. Run five miles each day. Etc."
Today, with our iPhone strapped to our arm or thrown into our Camelback, we're still managing our goals but the data feedback is unforgiving, instantaneous, and deeply motivating. Lose It!, for example, is a phenomenal weight-loss tool. I've mostly been using it to maintain my preferred weight, but I've watched my good friend Bryce Roberts melt away 30-plus pounds while getting into the best biking shape he's ever been in.
Not that Runkeeper hasn't helped. Both Bryce and I use it to track our mountain bike rides. Using the iPhone's built-in GPS capabilities, Runkeeper tracks my rides, calling out to me each mile what my pace has been, motivating me to ride harder. As if that weren't motivation enough, I have Runkeeper set to automatically post my times and workouts to Twitter: I often refuse to rest simply because I know my Twitter friends are going to pillory me if they see a weak pace.
This ability to minutely track my exercise and diet regime so easily has literally changed my life, so much so that I've been exploring other areas that could be improved through data feedback and analysis.
One that I discovered over the weekend is Ego, which tracks Google Analytics statistics, Twitter follower counts, and more. I had already been tracking my statistics for this CNET blog on an hourly basis, for example, to see which posts were resonating and where, but Ego now gives me the ability to take that obsession on the road with me.
Given the recession, never before has it been more important that my wife and I manage to a budget. I've been a Wesabe user for a year or two now, and am just now starting to experiment with Wesabe on the iPhone. My wife, however, uses Mint, a similar service, which also is available on the iPhone.
I'm sure that such tools can be used to excess, but my experience thus far has been that they greatly improve the control I have over my life. These iPhone applications have helped me to track my progress against personal goals and, in so doing, have facilitated that progress.
Even as the Googles of the world get rich on the aggregation of our personal data, other companies like the makers of Runkeeper enriching our lives by making data personally useful and actionable. To make this happen, we simply needed mobile devices to be as powerful as they were ever-present with us.
Now that this has happened, there is no end to the possibilities our personal data affords us, especially as application providers find ways to allow us to mingle our data with others to drive enhanced value for both parties.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Roger Shuttleworth?
Turning to the sports news, I understood why:
Shuttleworth, masquerading as Roger Federer, had just beaten Andy Roddick to win Wimbledon and beat his own record for most Grand Slam singles titles in men's tennis history.
Not bad for a computer geek.
Shuttleworth was, of course, the first African in space, but it's nice to see him getting some exercise and devoting himself to terrestrial pursuits from time to time.
Of course, it's possible that the whole Ubuntu thing is actually Federer's claim to fame. Perhaps Federer is the real open-source geek-cum-tennis pro while Shuttleworth is the sham?
Mark Federer?
Neither have I. Whenever Federer and I hang out, Shuttleworth is always curiously absent, yet shows up soon after Federer leaves.
Some people think Roger Federer and Mark Shuttleworth simply look like each other. But I'm not fooled. I know the truth.
They're one and the same.
Or maybe they're twin brothers separated at birth.
;-)
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay. But notice the timestamps: you'll never find me Twittering at the same time as Richard Stallman. Coincidence?
Martin Veitch, Editor of CIO.co.uk
If your football club (soccer team) were a software company, which would it be? Martin Veitch, editor in chief of CIO.co.uk, has written two wonderfully insightful (and painful, depending on which team you follow) analyses of which football clubs lost their software twins at birth. See here and here.
Among my favorites:
Google would be Arsenal: Fancy footwork, nice location in central London, clever ideas, and easy on the eye. The players are all young but a lot of the time all the good work goes nowhere. Best players have recently ended up demanding transfers. (OUCH!)
IBM would be Manchester United: Old money and great tradition. Everybody ends up going there in the end, even if they don't like them.
Oracle would be Real Madrid: Forceful leader reeking of money, fine wine, and cigars. The strategy is to buy anything that moves. It usually works in the end.
Red Hat would be Manchester City: Started out with odds and ends donated by local community but somehow ended up with loads of money flooding in.
Adobe would be Everton: Dogged and outperforming but they only have one plan and they live in the shadow of a bigger and better bunch just down the road.
Novell would be Leeds United: They used to be huge when I were a lad.
There are many more, and they're funniest when comparing to the more obscure teams, in my opinion (i.e., you really have to know the game to get the joke), but very funny and dead-on more often than not.
Try coming up with some for other sports.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
