Monetizing open source and killing Adobe AIR

Appcelerator, an open-source company that makes it easier to build and manage rich Web applications with aim to bring them to the desktop, today announced Titanium, its new platform to do just this.

Jeff Haynie, CEO Appcelerator

(Credit: Appcelerator)

Titanium is primed to be the open-source Adobe AIR killer so I sat down with Jeff Haynie, Appcelerator's CEO, to drill him on the preview release.

Q: What is Titanium and why should we care?
Haynie: We started Appcelerator with the dream of developing an open platform to make it faster, cheaper and easier to build rich Web applications and deploy them in various environments such as the desktop and mobile device.

We first came out with the Appcelerator SDK that allows you to rapidly build a rich Web app with fully integrated front-end and back-end plug-ins. The back-end supports a ton of programming languages and frameworks and on the front-end we have a tool kit to support building the apps--so it makes it super easy. We wanted to take it one step further though and so came out with Titanium today.

In simple terms, Titanium is an open-source platform that allows you to build desktop and mobile applications using standard Web technologies, like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Titanium means you can easily work with your existing Web development skills, you can build native desktop applications with all the traditional functionality of a desktop app and you are completely free to innovate and push the boundaries since the platform is entirely open. You don't even need to use the Appcelerator SDK at all.

So in addition to launching Titanium you are also announcing a Series A financing round of $4.1 million. How did you raise it?
Haynie: Appcelerator was bootstrapped for the first two years, but with the SDK we were able to bring in revenue through additional services and training sessions. To continue to make the serious investments in the products and support our customers, we needed to raise our Series A round and were fortunate enough to hook up with Ryan Floyd of Storm Ventures and Larry Augustin, who are both true believers in the need for Web apps to move to the desktop and the belief that open source is the only way this will truly be made a reality.

The bane of many open source companies existence is monetization. Any details on how you plan to monetize Titanium and actually make some money?
Haynie: We are a pure open source company, so we will never do the bait and switch open-source model and start charging for Titanium or offer a crippled version or an enterprise version. Titanium will always be free and open for anyone to use--everything you see is what you get.

In the future we are going to announce some cloud-based, software-as-a-service style services to add on top of the infrastructure that will extend the functionality. We will be announcing these in Q1 of next year, so stay tuned.

I also believe this current economic situation is an incredible time for open-source companies. It's a really good time to be doing what we're doing. We are seeing a worldwide hiring freeze, but still the expectations of growth, so everyone is looking for ways to get more out of what they already have.

It is the open source model that will make it possible for Titanium to build up such a strong user base. We are lowering the cost and timing it takes to develop applications and there is no need to hire other vendors because you can use your existing web development skills.

Any apps developed using Titanium so far?
Haynie: When we announced Titanium today we also released a couple demo apps as user cases for people to check out. In the true spirit of open source, you can download the full versions of the apps and the full source code. You can check out Tweetanium, our Twitter client, and Playtanium, a YouTube video player, and a Contact Manager here: http://titaniumapp.com/demos. We're very excited to see what people build on top of these applications though.

[eagledrc]

The ability to use Java instead of having to learn a new language is killer. Otherwise, not much will happen with HTML apps. But open source is great. Can't wait for a Linux version...

[gggg sssss]

Java?

[akapoor14]

Pretty large download size of 20 MB.. and can it compete with the huge developer base of Flash that can bring all those apps to AIR easily

[Goodbye Helicopter]

the strongest point of this is the multi-language paradigm.
other than that, it's still shoe-horning web technologies into doing things they were never made for doing well.
AIR isn't exactly taking off because it stinks to code in and there are plenty of open source free frameworks out there already.

[adoberob]

@Goodbye Helicopter: A couple points of clarification. First, Adobe AIR, released in February of this year, is close to 100 million installations so it is indeed taking off. Also, installations of the AIR runtime are primarily driven by compelling applications created by developers. Second, a majority of the most popular open source frameworks for building web applications today support Adobe AIR in a first class way -- ranging from Flex to jQuery to Dojo to Ext JS and beyond. The latest versions of Flash, Flex Builder, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Aptana all provide support for building AIR applications though you can use any tool you like (vi, emacs, etc. :). If you have feature requests on how we can make the coding experience better for you, I welcome and encourage your feedback.

Adobe AIR Feedback form:
http://www.adobe.com/go/wish/

Thanks!

Rob Christensen
Product Manager, Adobe AIR
http://blogs.adobe.com/air/

[notanexpert]

@adoberob: Where is your Linux version???

[gggg sssss]

@adoberob that huge number includes all of those Acrobat reader AIR slipstream auto updates that nobody actually wants, right. So really only 8 people actually went to Adobe and actually clicked on teh download button. Right?

[adoberob]

@notanexpert: Our Linux beta is available on our Labs website. See: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/linux/ -- many users are using it today and providing great input back to our team. Many Linux users are running AIR applications today. We're also putting the finishing touches on the final version now. Stay tuned for updates. Just as in our beta, we're planning on supporting Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE.

@gggg sssss: Content is king -- or in this case, applications are king. While some people go to our website and download the AIR runtime, most people actually install it when they go to install an application. The install badge for the application, a Flash movie that's embedded inside of a web page, detects whether the runtime is installed on the end user's machine before attempting to install the application. If the runtime is not installed, an extra step added to the installation sequence. It's very seamless and nearly all AIR applications are deployed this way. Many of the AIR runtimes are installed this way as well.

An application like Twhirl has been installed over 1/2 a million times. See: http://twitter.com/loiclemeur/statuses/911563484 -- I'd encourage you to download Twhirl and check out the install experience for yourself: http://www.twhirl.org/ .

Rob Christensen
Product Manager, Adobe AIR
http://www.adobe.com/go/air/

[Hep Cat]

If Adobe keeps sh*tting all over its customers and developers, stuff like this might get a foothold.

[jeffhaynie]

Adobe is a great company and Adobe AIR is a fantastic product. We have a lot to live up to.

Our approach is a little different and our technology, we hope, over time will be much more compelling and competitive -- but we have a lot to live up to and Adobe has done an incredible job blazing the path.

We strongly believe that these types of platforms should remain free, should be open to the widest possible audience, should be developed in a community-driven approach and should have the benefit of the best minds in the world helping drive the direction and the roadmap and helping build out the capabilities.

That's our approach and we think it's a good one.

If you want to help out I'd encourage you to visit our community site at http://community.appcelerator.org/groups/titanium our visit http://titaniumapp.com. Our source code is hosted on GitHub and we're actively working with developers to build out Titanium. If there's something you want to see, you can participate in a number of ways to help make that happen. That's the power of an open source approach and an open community.

Jeff Haynie
CEO, Appcelerator

[MadLyb]

I guess the author's approach to 'disrupting' is to make outlandish claims for a newcomer.