funambol

If the desktop is dying, mobile sync is king

Google has proclaimed that the conventional PC will become "irrelevant" within the next three years, and it insists that it puts mobile first in development.

That's a bold statement indicating just how much Google is betting on the mobile Web. But it's also an indication of just how critical synchronization technology is going to become--especially syncing to an open Web.

Traditionally, sync has been that thing you do between your desktop and your one mobile device to ensure that calendars, address books, and even browser bookmarks are current between the two islands of computing. But in … Read more

Android's unintentional beneficiary: Funambol

Google Android adoption--both that which is publicly announced and that which is still under wraps--is amazing. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently declared that Android adoption is set to "explode." This is good news for Google, of course, as well as the wireless carriers and handset manufacturers that support Android.

It's also extremely good news for Funambol, the open-source mobile cloud sync company.

Even as the mobile telcos seek winning alternatives to the controlling grasp of Apple, that same industry is simultaneously enthusiastic and leery about Google: enthusiastic about the operating system, but leery about tying all of … Read more

Managing your mobile data sync

As consumers increasingly purchase sophisticated smartphones such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Droid, they are developing expectations for how these phones allow contacts, calendars, e-mail, and social networks to remain in sync across all their devices.

One of the big challenges is that users don't always maintain the same source of inputting data--they switch from browser to desktop application to smartphone as their data access and entry point, introducing many variables into the data chain. And data integrity will only get more complicated as more applications become browser-based and keep no local data storage.

Most enterprise users have a … Read more

Why open clouds are more important than open phones

Ars Technica's Ryan Paul wants to know, "Can a [truly open smartphone] be done?" But the real question is, "Should we care?"

I ask because some within the open-source ranks can't see the forest (choice) for the trees (freedom). For them, Freedom (with a capital "F") has but one meaning (free and open-source licensing), and is the end itself, not the means to an end (user choice).

Hence, Bradley Kuhn of the Software Freedom Law Center expresses anxiety about the future of freedom in mobile...

We are in a very precarious time … Read more

Google Android: Mobile open source has finally arrived

Open source, despite its community roots, often doesn't become mainstream until corporations get involved. There are notable exceptions--Mozilla Firefox and the Apache Web server being just two--but often it is corporate self-interest that provides the mechanism to deliver the value of community-developed open source to a mainstream audience.

While the mobile market remains highly fragmented, therefore, I take it as a very encouraging sign that Google has thrown its considerable heft behind Android, its open-source mobile operating platform.

Sure, we've had mobile open-source companies for years. I was part of one of the first: Lineo, an embedded Linux … Read more

Why mobile applications need cloud services

A recent study released by ABI Research says that limited processing power, battery life, and data storage will limit mobile application growth in the mass market, even among smartphones like Apple's iPhone.

But, applications that connect to cloud resources are much more likely to be successful than those that run only on the mobile device.

ABI Research predicts mobile cloud computing will deliver annual revenues topping $20 billion over the next five years. ABI Research senior analyst Mark Beccue says device fragmentation and memory currently limit the level of sophistication developers can deliver through mobile apps. By contrast, running … Read more

Open-source licensing: Your mileage may vary

Over the past 10 years that I've been involved in open source, one thing has become strikingly clear to me: there are no real predictors of open-source success. There are, of course, general principles that contribute to the creation of successful open-source projects, but serendipitous "right project, right time" circumstances often matter most.

I was therefore intrigued to read two articles that crystallized my own thinking around critical components of successful open-source projects.

The first is from BusinessWeek and details the mechanics of Mozilla's Firefox community. Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's director of Firefox, reveals that while … Read more

Nokia launches Ovi while Symbian launches...nothing

Lost in the news that Nokia has finally released its Ovi application store, akin to the iPhone's App Store, is what this means for Symbian, the world's most widely used (and most easily overlooked) operating system for mobile devices.

Symbian, as an open-source operating system, should be mobile developers' darling. Instead, it continues to be an afterthought.

Symbian has been talking up its open source plans for roughly a year now, plans that should put it at the heart of an iPhone-beating application store. But that hasn't happened. Instead, Symbian has stood on the sidelines as Apple'… Read more

Open-source companies log impressive growth

Even as the global economy tanks, open-source companies continue to soar. A range of open-source companies reported sales and community growth this past week, including:

Funambol: As announced on its Web site, Funambol's mobile open-source community has grown 2,000 percent, downloads are up 34 percent, and the number of active Funambol servers is up 42 percent in the past three months alone. Actuate: While business intelligence vendor Actuate's overall license revenues grew 15 percent last quarter, its BIRT (i.e., open source) revenue grew 32 percent. Linux Desktop: While there's no one company behind Linux for … Read more