Archive for July, 2010
A tweet by Lance Walter got me thinking:
lancewalter: People like the Cloud’s disruptive “pay-per-drink” model. Reaffirms my belief that great tech ideas are often conceived in bars.
I replied quickly:
ydemontcheuil: @lancewalter #opensource: “free as in free speech, not as free beer”. #cloud: “pay per beer”. You’re right about bars. Can we get open bar?
And then I started to think. That’s the beauty of real-time marketing: you act, then you think. And then you say, geez I wished I did not write that, it’s already replicated on millions of servers worldwide and will stain my record forever. No biggie in this case.
So, people often think of open source as free, and then we explain that it’s free as in free speech, not free as in free beer. And everyone knows that there is no such thing as free beer – brewers are in it to make money. When beer is free, it means that someone else is paying for it – for example when you have an open bar.
Look at the Cloud now. Lance uses the pay-per-drink analogy. This is more of a cash bar approach. You drink all you want, you don’t need to order in advance or even plan on how much you will need to drink. And you don’t need to wait for the waiter to make rounds and take your order. Just get to the source, use what you need when you need it.
Where does open source tie in with the Cloud? We all know that open source powers the Cloud. Like the cash bar and open bar models, they do not oppose one another but rather complement each other nicely.
Where is that taking us? I am not so sure now… I had a hunch this analogy was interesting. Maybe if other people give it some thinking, we could build an interesting open source analogy, like Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar or James Dixon’s Beekeeper Model…
Yves
Disclaimer: I wasn’t drunk when I wrote this. Maybe jet lagged and sleep deprived, but definitely not drunk.
Half way into 2010, it’s time to pause for a minute (but not more than a minute!) and look back at these past six months. We have put out a press release summarizing the high points of this year so far.
What does the press release say?
- Q2 was our twelfth consecutive quarter of growth – even Q1 was stronger than Q4, confirming a very strong momentum.
- We launched version 4, the first unified data management platform bringing together data integration, data quality and master data management within a single solution.
- We grew our customer base by 50% to over 1,500 customers, up from 1,000 at the beginning of the year.
- Total downloads reached 10 million, with over 450,000 users of our open source products.
- We added several prestigious awards to our already long list such as Network World open source company to watch, AlwaysOn Global 250, the Red Herring Top 100 Europe, The VAR Guy’s Open Source 50 and InfoWorld’s Bossie Award.
What doesn’t the press release say, but still is worth mentionning?
- It does not list customer names. Listing customer names is always a big hassle, because we need to obtain approval on a case by case basis and get everyone to review the release. So we went the easy way. But we have recently announced some good customer references, and all you need to do is take a look at our rolling logos ticker on our site to understand who the other ones are.
- It does not mention geographical expansion. That’s because we officially opened two new offices in early July, so that was not technically in Q2. And we want to save some news for September, when everyone comes back all suntanned and full of energy. But if you want a hint on where we are expanding, I suggest taking a look at my Twitter feed – I usually don’t make random business trips just to easy sushi or pizza (OK, now I have blown it… and yes, this is so cliché).
- It does not say that we have completely redesigned our web site, making it better looking and more “pro”, but also easier to navigate with a new “adoption process” overlay. Check it out. And – kudos to our web team, primarily Wassim and Daphné, for pulling this off.
Stay tuned for more news from Talend! And enjoy your summer.
Yves
French Minister of Budget François Baroin just launched the second phase of the “General Review of Public Policies” program, aiming to modernize the French administration and to cut public spending by €10 billion.
150 new measures [in French] have been adopted for the 2011-2013 period. Most of these are set to enhance quality of service to the public. In addition to cutting 100,000 positions in the public sector, these measures encourage a massive use of the Internet to rationalize the public’s dealings with the administration, while reducing associated costs by €300 million.
In addition, after the United States and United Kingdom, France is the third country (to my knowledge) to be announcing the nomination of a “State CIO”, whose missions will be, among others, to optimize IT Support within the whole administration and to centralize public purchase (which should bring an additional €700 million in savings). If IT back office is said to be rationalized, enhancing Internet front-office and associated applications will also help to simplify legal declarations for both enterprises and private individuals.
This nomination and 150 measures are really good news for French citizens, as the State CIO will be instrumental to anchor IT at the center of the public services, with a lot of e-administration programs to be launched or enhanced.
This news is also great for the open source world: if I understand correctly, the French government is aiming to boost quality of service while reducing costs. And to succeed, I don’t see many other alternatives than relying on open source solutions! I cannot imagine a government – which is planning to cut costs – deciding to select expensive and inflexible systems offered by proprietary vendors.
For more than 5 years, companies such as Talend have helped hundreds of public sector organizations industrialize their IT projects, cutting costs and gaining agility. It seems that it was only a beginning.
Bertrand
On Tuesday, July 15, 2010 at 11am Pacific (2pm Eastern, 8pm CET) our friends at the Olliance Group, the organizers of the Open Source Think Tank, will be moderating a very exciting Webinar on best practices in open source procurement and support. This Webinar will feature a panel of exciting presenters, including:
Register now!
Yves
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