The inventor of the Sugar user interface used in the One Laptop Per Child's XO says his company is developing a version for Intel's own low-cost laptop.
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Intel)
Walter Bender said in an interview Thursday with PC World that "a community volunteer is working with Intel on Sugar for the Classmate PC. Sugar Labs helped to expedite the relationship."
Bender is the inventor of the kid-friendly interface, which sits on top of a computer's operating system. His company, Sugar Labs, was spun off from OLPC in May. At the time of the announcement, Bender said Sugar Labs was already talking about sharing the UI with at least four other low-cost laptop makers, including Asus.
He described OLPC as the "primary, but not exclusive, downstream project" for Sugar Labs, and confirmed that the two companies continue to work together on further development of the UI.
That Intel will be working tangentially with OLPC again is notable. The chipmaker left its position as board member of OLPC in January, citing "fundamental differences" between the two companies' visions for low-cost computing. Previous to that, OLPC's founder Nicholas Negroponte had asked Intel to stop selling their Classmate PC platform because it was interfering with sales of the XO. Unsurprisingly, Intel declined his request.
The broad influence of the One Laptop Per Child initiative continues to expand its sphere.
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OLPC)
Not long ago it was unclear whether the PC--originally conceived as a $100 laptop for children in developing countries--would ever become a reality after a long series of delays. Now the XO laptop seems on the verge of becoming a hot item, and all the research that went into it is leading down divergent paths.
Case in point: Walter Bender, who just left the OLPC initiative to start up its open-source software spinoff, is reportedly in "informal discussions" to get its Linux operating system on low-cost laptops made by four manufacturers. The nonprofit spinoff, Sugar Laboratories, is having discussions with Pixel Qi and is interesting in pursuing a relationship with Intel, Bender told BetaNews. No other companies were named, though he mentioned Asus on Sugar Labs' Web site last week.
It's only the latest permutation in a long-running saga that has seen infighting, resignations, and other controversy since the project's inception. Last month OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte said the XO might switch from Linux to Windows XP, but that change remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
Former One Laptop Per Child President Walter Bender has formed a nonprofit called Sugar Labs, which will advance the Sugar graphical interface he originally created for the low-cost computing project.
Sugar Labs will partner with developers of Sugar-compatible applications and other hardware makers that want to use the user interface on their devices.
"By being independent of any specific hardware platform and by remaining dedicated to the principles of free and open-source software, Sugar Labs ensures that others can develop diverse interfaces and applications from which governments and schools can choose," Bender wrote on the Sugar Labs Web site.
One of the first of the "others" on the list is Asus' popular Eee PC.
Bender moved on from OLPC last month after it was revealed the project's founder was leaning toward abandoning the use of Sugar and Linux in favor of putting Windows XP on his $188 XO laptops.
Microsoft and OLPC made it official yesterday, though there will still be OLPCs offered with Linux. In an interview with CNET News.com, OLPC founder and Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said the company is aiming to port the XO's Sugar interface over to Windows and has been "in discussions" with third parties, which would appear to refer at least in part to Sugar Labs.
The chairman and founder of the One Laptop Per Child initiative said in an interview Tuesday that the XO laptop may switch from using Linux to eventually running Windows XP, according to several reports.
Windows XP could soon be available on the XO.
(Credit: OLPC)In an interview with the Associated Press following the departure of the OLPC project's president, Nicholas Negroponte said the open-source Sugar software, developed expressly for the XO, could run on top of XP. Negroponte cited weaknesses in the XO's current open-source operating system (right now the XO can't support the latest versions of Flash animation) as well as the Linux community itself (for being too "fundamentalist") as the reasons for a possible future shift.
He said the laptop's open-source software had actually scared away potential adopters.
An XP-only version of the XO could come soon enough. In December Microsoft said it would begin running limited tests in January to see if the operating system would be a good fit for the low-cost device. At the time, Microsoft said it could have XP running on the XO by the second half of the year.
SugarCRM has landed a $20 million venture investment round, designed to boost international expansion by the maker of open-source customer relationship management software, the company said Thursday.
Taking the lead on the funding was New Enterprise Associates, with existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Walden International joining in. That brings SugarCRM's total funding to $46 million.
The company plans to use the funds for not only research and development, but also increasing its global footprint--particularly in Europe and Asia.
SugarCRM, founded in 2004, released its Sugar 5.0 software in December. To date, the company has racked up over 4 million downloads of its commercial open-source CRM goodies and counts more than 60,000 community members.
With its infusion of funds, SugarCRM will have more leeway as it heads down the path toward an IPO within the next two years. But with the recent industry consolidation--case in point being Sun Microsystems' planned $1 billion merger with MySQL--SugarCRM may find that option just as tasty.
Confirmation
Thank you for participating in Give One Get One. Your donation will bring education and enlightenment to children of the developing world, and, in recognition of your gift, you will be receiving an XO laptop for the child in your life as well. If you have any questions or problems, please contact One Laptop Per Child at service@laptopgiving.org. Should your employer wish to match your donation, we are a 501(c)(3) organization and our EIN# is 20-5471780. Thanks again, and welcome to the One Laptop Per Child community!
Why two?
... Read moreSugarCRM is pulling out both barrels in Japan, announcing today that it has signed an agreement with Softbank Technology to distribute SugarCRM solutions in Japan, including as an ASP/hosted service.
This is exciting news, as relationships are key to cracking the conservative Japanese market, and Softbank Technology (along with existing partner CareBrains) is a great channel into Japan.
But the real news is in who SugarCRM beat to get Softbank's nod:
... Read moreHubbard, Ohio-based NanoLogix, which specializes in industrial microbes, said today that it has coaxed microorganisms to create hydrogen, which in turn was used to generate electricity.
The hydrogen powered a 5.5-kilowatt generator. The generator powered multiple strings of 100-watt bulbs. Hydrogen doesn't power generators directly. Hydrogen is fed into a fuel cell, which strips away electrons that get ultimately fed into an electrical appliance.
The hydrogen is harvested from sugars in wastewater, according to the company. The company gets it from a Welch's jelly plant nearby in Erie, Pa. The process was devised in part by Harry Diz, department chair and professor of environmental engineering at Gannon University and the developer of the NanoLogix bioreactor. The company did not provide specifics on how much sugar and wastewater is needed, what conditions are required to metabolize the sugar, what species of microbes were used, or whether Nutella would have the same effect. Still, an interesting achievement.
NanoLogix also develops products for the medical community and national security.
Microbes, those disease-spreading pests that Mr. Clean was made to kill, are one of the emerging stars in the energy field. Microbes essentially take sugars or other matter and convert them into alcohol, methane, semiconductor materials and other useful products. Microbes are basically little chemical factories or employees, but without dental plans or severance packages.
NanoLogix says it's the first time that the company knows of someone harvesting electricity from microbes and using it on site. While that may be the case, others have been tinkering with exploiting microorganisms for hydrogen. James Swartz at Stanford University has isolated a microbe that uses energy from the sun to split water molecules and create hydrogen. With this technique, raw materials like sugar aren't needed. Unfortunately, in their natural state, the microbes get killed by oxygen, so Stanford researchers are trying to see if they can genetically insulate them from the effects of oxygen.
A company called Fundamental Applied Biology has been formed around Swartz's research.
A pest approach to hydrogen could take out of of the major objections to hydrogen: the costly, energy-intensive process for making it.
Applications company SugarCRM intends to file to become a public company within two years, said CEO John Roberts.
SugarCRM launched three years ago in what Roberts said was an "experiment" to use an open-source business model to create high-quality customer relationship management applications. The company on Monday released a beta of Sugar 5.0, a major update to its application suite.
Since its launch, SugarCRM has funded its growth largely from revenue, rather than the $26 million in venture funding it raised, he said.
"Now we're at a point where we're acquiring customers extremely fast," Roberts said. "We've gone from 'we hope to (go public)' to 'we absolutely are on track.'"
Roberts anticipates that the company, which now has 125 employees, can grow to $100 million in yearly revenue in the next couple of years.
The open-source business model, which had not been tried in packaged applications before SugarCRM launched, is what has allowed the company to grow so rapidly and to focus on making quality software, he said.
Doing software engineering in the open, where outsiders can view the source code, has improved the product development process, Roberts said.
Selling is easier, too. Because the company makes a low-end version available for free, most of its customers are already very familiar with the product and don't require a costly sales and marketing process, he said.
Roberts said that SugarCRM's approach can be replicated by other companies. Database company MySQL has said that it intends to go public, and middleware provider JBoss was sold to Red Hat for $420 million. Last week, XenSource, which has built its commercial product on top of an open-source hypervisor, was bought by Citrix for $500 million.
Traidtional software companies spend too much on marketing and sales and not enough on research and development, Roberts argued.
"I came to Silicon Valley to write great software. But we saw this disconnect in enterprise software companies," he said.
Enhancements to Sugar 5.0 focus on making the application foundation more robust and appropriate for large-scale deployments. A final version is slated for release by the end of September or in early October. It will be released under the General Public License version 3.0.
New features include an Ajax e-mail client that is closely integrated with the applications and a revamped on-demand version. On-demand installations account for 40 percent of SugarCRM's customers.
The new version also includes a Module Builder that lets business users visually create and share their own application add-ons.
Update: this blog incorrectly represented Compiere's position on the GPLv3, which the company has not yet announced. That paragraph has been deleted.
SugarCRM intends to adopt the General Public License version 3 for a forthcoming update of its open-source applications.
Sugar Community Edition 5.0, scheduled to go into beta in a few weeks and be released in September of this year, will use GPLv3, the company said on Wednesday. Its current products use either the Mozilla Public License (MPL) or the very similar Microsoft Community License (Ms-CL), according to SugarCRM CEO John Roberts.
One of the advantages of the GPLv3 is it makes it easier for people to share code from different GPL-controlled open-source projects, Roberts said. At the same time, SugarCRM is able to offer customers of its Professional edition a typical commercial license, where people can see the product's source code but cannot distribute it, he added.
"My hope is that it becomes a global standard," Roberts said.
The company's decision to use the GPLv3 is an endorsement for the latest edition of the most commonly used open-source and free software license.
Finalized in late June, GPLv3 places tougher restrictions on software patents and a provision to prevent "patent protection" deals like the one between Microsoft and Novell. During its development, it drew criticisms from high-profile open-source participants, including developers of the Linux kernel.
But since its release, open-source projects have started to voice plans to adopt it.
Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz has said he hopes GPLv3 can be Sun's unifying open-source software license, but so far the company hasn't released its two highest-profile open-source sofware projects, Java and OpenSolaris, under GPLv3.
Open-source database company MySQL has said it will wait to see how the license is received before deciding whether to move its open-source database of the same name from GPLv2 to GPLv3.
Some important projects are moving to GPLv3 with their next versions. Among them are Samba, used to share files over Windows networks, and the
--CNET News.com's Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.
