Delivery and packaging: Making it count
The maturation of what is commonly termed 'commercial open source' continues to cast light on the need for commercial open source companies to employ better methods and approaches related to creating better packaged consumables for community/customer use. These new methods and approaches for delivery and packaging must take into consideration the unique needs of an open source community also require an intimate understanding of the dynamics of commercial open source ecosystems with regards to the software product, itself (one where a product is built both for and by a for-profit entity and a community of participants). This even encompasses situations where there is a dual product offering (enterprise & open source focused), as each version tends to overlap significantly with the next.
Perhaps the most natural response to the above statement is 'why?' And the best answer for why this is the case might just be the fact that easily consumable open source is the future. Just as entrenched barriers against open source have been dismantled, through the rest of 2007 and beyond there will be a tremendous opportunity to reach new market opportunities. A more receptive mentality towards open source software and services, will require that what is available (software, documentation, executables, etc.) be made as consumable by a more diverse (and maybe less knowledgeable) crowd. In other words, as the horizon for the open source community extends past where we have seen it previously, it is becoming costly to tightly assume who is looking to use a product, for what purpose and when. Therefore, efforts must be directed at making products as consumable as possible.
Delivery: Into the right hands
Record labels (especially large, established ones) exist not solely because of an innate consumer requirement to acquire music from singular channels of origination, but in part because artists often prefer to trade ownership and copy rights for the ability to get their artwork into the hands of a wider audience than they could alone. Record companies have worked at perfecting the art of delivery, by understanding the dynamics involved with getting music (quality considerations, aside) into the hands of buyers as well as persons who can provide as much exposure for it as is plausible. In a similar manner, proprietary software companies also understand the importance of formalizing delivery channels as a bottom line asset.
The growth of the open source software industry is nearing an inflection point where the companies which recognize the need to not only develop quality product(s), but also distribute them efficiently, will begin to distance themselves from the crowd. Thus far, some of the more impressive efforts have taken shape as Sun Microsystems' Solaris 10 Operating System, SugarCRM's SugarForge and the Red Hat Network (yes, there are much, much more). All three have taken different approaches to delivering unique products while sharing several characteristics, in a sense they all:
- Create a pipeline through which software developed within centralized and globally-distributed environments can be drawn into and channeled out to interested parties.
- Place an emphasis on software integration into larger paradigms and ecosystems.
- Support streamlined, web-based interfaces.
I won't start rushing to crown anyone a 'Thought Leader' or 'Delivery Champion' but it suffices to say that the aforementioned provide a good look at what its going to take to remain competitive as an commercial open source entity.
Packaging: The art of productization
Though often overlooked as a 'nice-to-have' when dealing with open source, packaging fits alongside the need for a capable delivery paradigm. It has less to do with the 'gloss and shine' that's applied post development and more to do with the how it is shaped in preparation of being used. Funambol provides a working example of what good productization can accomplish. Early on, the company defined its visions for delivering mobile email solutions to the mass market and went about crafting their strategy and implementation to reflect such.
However, because Funambol's Mobile Application Server is capable of providing "push" email, PIM synchronization and device management to carriers, enterprises and OEM's around the world, its packaging has to reflect that fact. Thus far, the company has been able to maintain a clear separation between different components which belong to each category. Without these cleanly divided set of releases/categories/components, their download numbers couldn't approach their current level (700,000+ downloads in August 2006) nor would they be experiencing their current level of adoption.
Within the open source realm, packaging takes a heightened sense of importance as random downloads are the primary means with which parties come into contact with a company's product/code base. Inadequately packaged source code, binaries, etc. do nothing to inspire confidence and work to reinforce negative perceptions about the quality of the company behind a product. At that point it becomes mostly irrelevant that it might have been downloaded X times or is in use at Y Fortune 500 companies, because the tangibility of those claims has already been compromised.
Where it meets
While news articles, announcements and good press serve their purpose, commercial open source will continue to be held to increasingly higher standards. Implicit in the acceptance of the open source software industry as a source of high quality products, is the expectation that its delivery and packaging will mirror that value. Far from being a secret, this reality is well on its way to becoming a competitive differentiator for both emerging and established players throughout the open source universe.
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