Open Source Unleashed

OpenProj and the office productivity landscape for 2008 and beyond

About three weeks back I had the opportunity to re-connect with Projity's Marc O'Brien about the recent developments surrounding OpenProj. To paraphrase the announcement, the open source project management software had been downloaded 175,000 times in its first three months of availability. I'll steer clear of a technological view of OpenProj since I wrote up a product review last time around following speaking to Marc for the first time, soon after the first beta release. A talk in which he explained why he felt comfortable setting the bar for OpenProj as high as he did from jump street (Marc went on record saying he eventually expected 7-11 million users). While his logic was sound:

• Microsoft notes that 7% of all Office desktops run Project.
• There are over 100 million users of OpenOffice.org alone, according to Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Giving a 7 million user count in the OpenOffice.org community alone.

The projection wasn't taken seriously by everyone despite numerous factors working in the projects favor. Namely, the $1,000 price tag for Microsoft Project and its separation from the Microsoft Office Suite. What I won't do here is attempt to delve into how many users OpenProj will eventually have based on the number of downloads thus far. However, my perspective is that the entire office productivity landscape has reached an inflection point that is ripe for an extended period of disruption. One where OpenProj, among many others, will undoubtedly play a key role.

Below are some of the directions that I expect to play into office productivity software trends for 2008 and beyond:

Enterprises expect innovation leadership from Microsoft. With a vice grip on the desktop productivity market leveraged by control of the dominant operating system, Windows, Microsoft has reached a point where customers and partners have come to expect nothing less than for the company to be an innovation leader. This means that simply churning out new versions of and fixes to entrenched productivity applications is no longer sufficient, the company must remain focused on meeting changing user needs and the expectation to deliver office productivity software innovation.

Open Document Format/OpenXML debate won't drive decision making. While the Open Document Format and Open XML debate has received its fair share of media and press coverage, standards support alone isn't going to spur changes in office productivity decisions alone. Even if enterprises are watching these developments in light of their document longevity concerns.

Google leads a pack of burgeoning long-term threats to Microsoft's Office dominance. There is a growing segment of interest in the adoption curve for Google Docs as a reference point for the readiness of Microsoft Office alternatives. Admittedly, I'll cast my lot there, too, but more importantly it's going to be interesting to see how Projity's role develops here. Obviously, adding OpenProj to a mix that involves OpenOffice.org strengthens the prospect of there being a feature complete set of open source components that further rivals Microsoft Office. However, Projity ’s business model is structured around upselling from OpenProj to its for-pay, Web-based, Project-ON-Demand SaaS product. So assuming Google Docs continues to gain momentum on the consumer front and OpenProj leads to a pick up of Project-ON-Demand purchases, it is very realistic that as early as mid-2009, Microsoft finds itself in an unenviable predicament. One where the company faces mounting pressure on the desktop front from open source players, i.e. OpenOffice.org and OpenProj, as well as from a class of increasingly relevant online office-type offerings from the Googles, Projitys and Zohos of the world.

IBM looks to broaden its reach with Lotus/Domino 8. I thought IBM's move to release Lotus Symphony for free was both timely and a saavy competitive play. Especially since I thought that "legacy" Lotus Notes versions suffered from a lack of relevance within the consumer realm. Until Symphony IBM never gave itself a fair shot at establishing traction with users at home and students before entering he workforce. Ironically, in my mind, the company's narrow focus on the enterprise actually hurt adoption levels since it artificially limited the avenues to stimulating user familiarity with the product suite. Offering free, enterprise grade software is a good start towards convincing more IT organizations to encourage employee experimentation and adoption of unfamiliar tools.

OpenOffice.org benefits from the emergence of Linux on the desktop. This one is pretty self-explanatory, with more consumers than every catching on to Linux there is more opportunity for the best freely available office suite to capture more traction. Yet I still don't see large levels of mainstream growth in its future over the next 12 to 18 months.

Innovation and user productivity emerge as competitive differentiators. The winners in this segment will have to innovate, cost alone won't cut it. The innovative offerings will be those that introduce new wrinkles to improving productivity levels at home, in the office and on the road.

Technorati Tags: OpenProj |  open source software | office productivity |  Google | Microsoft Office | IBM

An eye on the GNOME Online Desktop project

In the past I've made a habit of making mention of the fact that the best shot for Linux on the desktop revolves around embracing the new role of the desktop. Namely, as the web continues to evolve into a bona-fide platform that encroaches upon functional areas typically associated with desktop computing, Linux is best suited to embracing this emerging reality. Ironically, the GNOME Online Desktop project is attempting to do just that. The project's goal is described (from its website) as "adapt[ing] the desktop to become the perfect window for online applications like GMail, Photobucket, Facebook, EBay, Wikipedia, and countless others that user and developer momentum is shifting towards." The project's objective is ambitious to say the least, but its timing and direction almost warrants an aggressive target.

Needless to say, I'm all for the effort since it raises the profile of innovation along the Linux desktop front. Integration of the standard desktop environment with expanding Web 2.0 cloud is paramount to the future of the desktop itself. A reality which the results of Microsoft's $240 million stake in Facebook may turn out to illustrate quite well. I won't hold my breath waiting for the day when all applications are hosted on the cloud and the desktop is simply a terminal, but the line separating Web stuff from desktop stuff is blurring with the emergence of SaaS and Web 2.0. Hence, the reason that the GNOME Online Desktop project so intrigues me. If the GNOME community can really put together support for the modern web it will be in prime position to potentially attract a growing class of users that have been freed from operating system lock-in by migrating to web applications.

Armed with obvious real world application and support from Red Hat, the GNOME Online Desktop project has the opportunity to overcome some initial fragmentation within its long-term focus. I want to see how/if the project will translate momentum from the continued release of the API's for popular online platforms like Facebook (MySpace and Orkut, included) as well as the swelling array of other services like Bebo and Twitter that will leverage them. While the practical, developer-centric approach embodied by efforts such as Mugshot is the way to go, I think the focus on enabling a new wave of user-generated content will pay dividends. The desktop as a gold-mine for homegrown content is a characterization worth exploring.

Admittedly, the progression of the GNOME Online Desktop project represents somewhat of a two way street. Perhaps, a web friendly open source desktop environment serves as a fertile ground for the utilization of platform services will further encourage larger cracks in other notable walled gardens. The possibilities are definitely alluring, making the GNOME Online Desktop project one to watch.

Technorati Tags: GNOME Online Desktop Project |  open source software | Linux | Web 2.0 | web platforms | open gardens

My 4Q 2007 Livre.nl contribution

In addition to blogging, I've also begun to contribute quarterly pieces on everything open (from open source to open standards to open business models) at Livre.nl which is a Dutch content portal focused on the same topics. For those who can't read Dutch I've posted my contribution for the 4th quarter of this year in English, below. I wrote it last month, so it's probably considered a bit dated from the perspective of the blogosphere but might still prove worth a read. For the record, I'm not fluent in Dutch either, but the Livre.nl folks are kind enough to translate my writing in advance of posting it.

Analysis of the IBM – OpenOffice.org Annoucement

On September 10^th, the announcement that IBM is now officially an active supporter and contributor to OpenOffice.org was released to the public. There are several angles and perspectives to the impact that this will have as far as open source, open standards and office productivity tools goes. It remains illogical to peg IBM’s move as a precursor to the fall of Microsoft Office as undisputed king of the hill for office productivity. The fact that IBM has just as much to gain as it does to contribute is overlooked in the process of casting the company solely as a benefactor. Overall, there is considerable room for more innovation and progress from alternatives like OpenOffice.org, all of which will accelerate the current rate of change in the direction of those same emergent parties.

A Much Needed Push for OpenOffice.org?
Since its inception in 2000, through the graces of Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice.org has established itself as the leading open source productivity suite on the market with 40 million downloads since 2003. Yet, market share estimates have yet to demonstrate that OpenOffice.org is putting a dent in the mammoth 95% market share held by Microsoft Office with its 400 million copies in use. The crux of the matter is that Microsoft-controlled formats have become de-facto standards, as a result of extremely thorough market penetration by Office and, in relation, the lack of sustained competition. OpenOffice.org has made an honest effort to address interoperability with these formats only to find resistance from the fact that they are closed and proprietary as much as by Microsoft’s complete control over them.

Regardless of the Microsoft slant, OpenOffice.org has yet to reach functional equivalence in crucial areas such as spreadsheet, database and project management. In making the transition from Microsoft Office, users continue to voice issues regarding the shortage of viable replacements for functions on which they have developed critical dependencies. While OpenOffice.org remains a quality alternative for basic productivity uses, those users who have made significant legacy investments in Microsoft Office find that even a small fraction of missing interoperability and feature completeness is enough reason to remain “victims” of lock-in.

There was talk that delays in the release of both Vista and Microsoft Office 12 a.k.a. Office 2007, opened the door for some variety of desktop Linux and OpenOffice.org combo to step into the void. However, anyone familiar with either open source product understood that the completely integrated combo of Vista and Office 2007 was, from the perspective of the consumer market, light years ahead of what the open source world had to offer. Even if release delays offered what seemed to be a window of opportunity. Nevertheless, the bigger opportunity for OpenOffice.org is being driven by the shift of the epicenter of the productivity market from the solely Microsoft dominated desktop to the web as a platform.

Newer tools like wikis and productivity applications delivered over the web (Google Apps) are causing users, organizations and businesses to consider whether Microsoft should be at the nexus of their options. Web-based approaches may not be ready to replace the desktop but they do offer OpenOffice.org the opportunity to use the open source model to integrate more web-centric content and information as sources of competitive differentiator. OpenOffice.org would benefit greatly from creating tie-in’s and integration points with this new paradigm. IBM’s direct involvement in the form of the infusion of technology [source code] and engineering [35 full-time programmers] might help make this prospect move closer to reality within the near future. The IBM brand will also boost the credibility of a project that is already far from anonymous, which might work towards encouraging other members of IBM’s expansive partner ecosystem to consider how contributing to OpenOffice.org might benefit them.

The IBM & ODF Angle
The commitment of support to OpenOffice.org is neither the first, nor the last by IBM in regards to open source software, or other open initiatives. The company can be traced as having furnished some sort of contribution to the following, amongst other, communities:

• The Linux kernel – http://kernel.org/
• Eclipse - http://www.eclipse.org/
• Apache Geronimo – http://geronimo.apache.org/
• The OpenAjax Alliance – http://www.openajax.org/
• The OpenDocumentFormat Alliance – http://www.odfalliance.org/

 IBM’s acceptance and support of openness in the form of standards and software is part of their competitive strategy for furthering their growth and market share in a number of areas. In the past, IBM has aligned itself with the disruption characterized by successful open source software in the attempt to harmonize with the trends that drive it. A proactive approach to involvement within open source communities has enabled the company to successfully integrate the resulting software assets into the company’s product portfolio. IBM’s prior, as well as its current, participation in OpenOffice.org follows an analogous pattern.

In the case of OpenOffice.org, IBM has been using its code for several years as the basis of its own version of office applications that have been integrated into the Lotus Notes 8 collaboration suite. They essentially forked the source code for internal use. Forking open source code is no easy task, even for a large corporation with access to considerable resources. So by synchronizing it internal efforts with the official OpenOffice.org code base, IBM will be able to better leverage the collective potential of a community that is bound to grow even more. Instead of facing the complex task of maintaining a separate fork, communal resources will be leveraged towards facilitating what better amounts to a general distribution. Consequently, future releases of IBM Lotus Symphony will benefit from being able to draw OpenOffice.org features directly from a general community distribution that has been verified by various pockets of the entire OpenOffice.org umbrella.

Even so, IBM has the most to gain from supporting the OpenOffice.org rise to parity with respect to its effect on the acceptance of open standard-driven, document formats. As it stands, the OpenDocument Formats (ODF) has suffered from the dearth of a fully compatible office productivity suite that is available as open source. As somewhat of a counter measure, IBM will release the aforementioned Lotus Symphony free-of-charge. Symphony includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a presentation tool. It is freely available to all users-- business, professional, academic, and consumer. In addition to running on both Windows and Linux, Symphony supports ODF and Microsoft Office formats. By contributing to the diversity of office productivity offerings, IBM strengthens the case for the acceptance of ODF. Interestingly, without the continued availability of progressively better offerings like Lotus Symphony and OpenOffice.org, it is very unlikely that a sufficient level of demand for ODF from the public sphere will foment in the near future.

The potential effects of continued Microsoft product saturation were, in part, demonstrated when the State of Massachusetts decided that they would move to accept both the Microsoft Office Open XML formats (OOXML) and ODF as acceptable formats. The decision rendered in early August of this year was a reversal of the state’s previous stance that only truly open standards should be included in their Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM). As Microsoft scrambled to attain OOXML approval by Ecma International, indicators pointed to a contingent of elements uncomfortable with excluding Microsoft formats based on the perceived lack of alternatives for applications contained within the Office productivity package.

Moving Forward
OpenOffice.org has the opportunity to surface at the forefront of a new wave of solutions that address some widely held concerns about the availability of Microsoft Office alternatives. If the involvement of IBM spurs further progress as a comprehensive offering and the according mainstream momentum, the ODF movement will receive a much needed boost from a widely available, open alternative that also affords compatibility with legacy Microsoft formats. Moreover, the recent setback for OOXML at the hands of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/ International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), where it failed to achieve the required number of votes for approval, provides further cause for all members of ODF camp (IBM included) to press forward with more support of OpenOffice.org during the aftermath of Microsoft’s failed standards fast track.

Technorati Tags: OpenOffice.org |  open source software | IBM |  Microsoft | OOXML | ODF | open standards | Sun Microsystems

Thoughts on the Mozilla Foundation and Thunderbird

It seems, with the recent developments surrounding the Mozilla Foundation and Thunderbird, that the non-profit renowned for Firefox is in the process of redefining its presences within the email space. The plans for the still-being-formed mail subsidiary within the Mozilla Foundation, informally dubbed MailCo since it currently lacks an official name, is to operate it like an independent open source software operation headed by David Asher. Last week, Mr. Asher addressed the Thunderbird community through an open letter that attempted to paint a picture of MailCo's future. Therein he mentioned that Mozilla is on tap to provide $3 million in seed funding to launch MailCo as well as clarification about why the two core developers for Thunderbird, David Bienvenu and Scott McGregor, announced their intentions to leave as employees of Mozilla.

Naturally, the aforementioned series of events have caused questions about the vitality of Thunderbird as well as Mozilla's commitment to non-Firefox projects to surface...a number of which are valid and noteworthy in their own right. However, certain changes which have taken place since the Foundation's early days, offer as good an explanation for the recent flurry of activity as anything else. Right now, the same teams tapped for Firefox releases are used for Thunderbird, leaving the latter as a significantly lower priority. Resources that could have been used to advance Thunderbird have instead been directed towards meeting the growing needs of what has become Mozilla's flagship, Firefox.

Evidently, at this point in the progression of Firefox as a top-notch internet browser, Thunderbird no longer benefits from this association. Gone are the days when email applications were compulsory to the browsing experience. In effect, Mozilla has made it clear that Firefox provides them with the opportunity to advance the "Open Web" through browsing and related activities. An opportunity they are intent on leveraging first and foremost. And frankly, the astronomical success of Firefox has mandated a noticeable shift in the Mozilla Foundation's mission/direction such that Thunderbird has suffered from what amounts to neglect. More than anything Mozilla is awfully close to becoming a one-trick pony, a status not aligned with its stated direction.

How well a model that features a dedicated subsidiary will work in light of the challenges facing Thunderbird is debatable. Especially considering the magnitude and scope of issues, such as:

• Missing the concept of integrated mail, calendaring and contacts
• No form of direct, feature completeness when compared to Microsoft Outlook
• Poor IMAP performance related to accessing messages offline
• Lack of a surrounding ecosystem
• The migration of users to the web for email access through web mail
• Competition from these guys

That being the case, there are an impressive number of possibilities that make the prospect of meeting the above challenges worth exploring. In particular, web mail falls short in several key areas in which desktop clients shine.

1. Integration with other client applications.
2. Isolation from the web browsing experience, which can crash upon visiting another unrelated web site.
3. Consistent offline functionality
4. STRONG PRIVACY GUARANTEES
5. User experience: web platforms have made tremendous strides but still have a ways to go
6. Support for old mail, i.e. importing email from X years ago

If anything of permanence is to take root from this tactical shift it will begin by invigorating an independent and vibrant community/identity around Thunderbird. Unlike Firefox, it will not have the option of taking aim at a single dominant choice and concentrate on chipping away at its market share. Furthermore, I don't really see Thunderbird as a replacement for anything Microsoft. It should never harbor misplaced fantasies of becoming another Firefox, because at the moment, it is best suited to simply evolve into a complete open source desktop email application. Beating Outlook (or any other alternative) is irrelevant at this point. Whereas, meeting the needs of Thunderbird users is paramount. Thunderbird is Mozilla's best shot at meaningful diversification (far better than SeaMonkey, Camino, Sunbird, et al.) and a broader reference point as an open source organization. We'll see how/if they capitalize on it.

Technorati Tags: Thunderbird |  open source software | Mozilla Foundation |  Firefox | SeaMonkey | Camino | Sunbird

Getting a Beat on OpenProj Beta 5

Below is a "blogged version" of a recently finished Product Evaluation Insight for OpenProj. As a background, Insight documents are the result of a hands-on evaluation of an open source software product. At Entiva, installing, configuring and actually using software is key to our research/analysis methodology. The goal is to inject added depth to our perspective as analysts and thereby prevent the regurgitation of marketing bullet points and product literature. In my personal experience, becoming an actual user is the best way to shed any pretense of expertise.

Disclaimer: Typically the evaluation of an open source product's beta version isn't relevant for very long, but I ignored convention for OpenProj based on the ripple it generated after its initial beta release and personal curiosity about it. Of course, the day after we completed the insight, OpenProj Beta 6 was released.

Projity introduced the Beta version of OpenProj, the desktop version of its project management software in August 2007. Positioned as an open source software alternative to Microsoft Project, OpenProj currently lacks feature completeness and maturity as a beta version but displays potential substantial potential to improve. As a standalone desktop application, OpenProj is not yet ready to compete head-to-head with Microsoft Office, and must continue to work towards meeting the basic needs of the average professional user.

The glaring lack of a freely available project management product has shifted attention to the open source software arena. Microsoft Project is what amounts to an industry benchmark for project management software. Its position has established the proprietary .mpp file format as a de-facto standard for project management applications. Prospective competitors and/or alternatives must learn to cope with this reality or risk being relegated to the margins. Thus far, this sparse crowd of alternatives has failed to meet the rising demand for a cost-effective and feature equivalent replacement for Microsoft Project. OpenProj is the newest such contender but the first open source offering to materialize as a complete, standalone product.

In this Product Evaluation Insight, OpenProj Beta 5 the desktop project management software released by Projity is reviewed. Available under the Common Public Attribution License (CPL) 1.0, OpenProj is capable of running on Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X. The evaluation environment was a ThinkPad T40 laptop running Windows XP Service Pack 2, equipped with a 1.5 GHz Intel Pentium M processor and 2.0 GB of RAM. The product was evaluated for an approximate total of 23 hours over the course of 6 days.

The Java-based OpenProj featured an interface familiar that will be familiar enough to Microsoft Project users. No user interface inconsistencies were noticeable that are sometimes present in desktop applications written in Java. The import feature worked fine, as several older and newer .mpp files were imported successfully. OpenProj ran in a fully standalone mode as a single executable with no external application dependencies. A simple project was created easily, there was even a helpful dialog that prompts if you want to either open or create a new project after application startup. OpenProj supports tasks, resources and making connections between the two. Plus, traditional key combinations are also supported like Ctrl+S (save), Ctrl+O (open file).

Not to be confused with Microsoft Project at this point in its lifecycle, OpenProj Beta 5 provides the bare necessities for basic project management tasks and utilities. The application keeps overhead to a minimum with a feature baseline that does no more or less than advertised. It follows that OpenProj boasts a clean user experience with core functionality that will appeal to users looking for a lightweight option.

Getting Started
OpenProj featured a clean and easy installation process starting with a native Windows installation file that was a mere 6.13MB. The install wizard was short and transparently easy. No initial configuration was required to have the application work immediately after install. The OpenProj application required a total of 6.97 MB of disk space. Updates are checked at application startup with a yes/no dialog shown prompting to retrieve the newest version from the web.

Support for Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts and Earned Value costing were also present. Each of which are compulsory to professional grade project management software. The complexity inherent to Microsoft Project was seemingly been stripped out and replaced with an ease of use that simplifies performing basic functions, while maintaining a parallel look-and-feel. On a related note, the OpenProj scheduling engine which is shared with Projity’s Project-On-Demand offering is comparable to, another Microsoft Project alternative, PS8 produced by Sciforma (formerly known as Scitor).

Compatibility with MS Project 2003 .xml files, which were previously handled inconsistently by a licensed version of Microsoft Project, was also demonstrated. A respectable set of working menu options were also provided using the right-click mouse button. Multiple window resizes demonstrated no ill effects on the composition or performance of the user interface.

The Rundown
OpenProj performed commendably for an open source project in beta and while Projity should be given a fair share of time to adjust shortcomings, there were several noticeable issues mostly surrounding the edit area. To start, inserting a new task caused the focus to switch to the task following the current one. There were also issues when using the copy and paste shortcut functions (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V) with for a resource name. The same functions demonstrated the expected behavior when invoked for task names. Moreover, the DELETE key caused the entire row to be removed when only the resource name was in focus. Also missing was support for the undo function across multiple panes within the application, a particularly useful option when working on complex projects.

As a beta version, it should be expected that higher level convenience features will be missing. The following are those that OpenProj will benefit from adding:

• Better integrated support for the entire project management and delivery process.
• Reporting integration
• Task profiles
• Internal windowing for opening multiple projects within the same instance
• Enhanced filtering options

At the current moment, competing against Microsoft Project on the Windows platform is not realistic. Instead, Linux and Mac offer the OpenProj its wedge into the marketplace and all the more so considering they are positioned as a freely available open source option. Interestingly, Microsoft has had its eyes on the web and has been busy adding server-side scheduling plus the ability to create and manage projects with its Office Project Server and Project Web Access.

That being the case there is still significant room for a solution that focuses on providing  light, limited features at a smaller scope of functionality that are easy to use. There also seems to be room to expand to include the notion of collaboration. However, it looks as if Projity is positioning its Project-on-Demand as a web-based offering for project teams, which might prevent them from exploring this avenue seriously.

Analysis
From a competitive perspective, it will be critical to stimulate the open source community in contributing to integrating OpenProj with other related open source projects, and providing localization. OpenOffice.org, which recently garnered a commitment from IBM towards growing the project, is one such project and talks are reportedly underway towards bringing a more comprehensive open source office suite closer to reality.

However, the first line of business for OpenProj is to address outstanding issues throughout, this, the initial beta release cycle in order to set the stage for a solid 1.0 general availability version. The open source project should benefit from the added input and contribution of a formative community, but it remains to be seen just how this will translate into the development life cycle. Regardless, the current beta 5 release version counts as a solid first step in the direction of a quality open source project management alternative for which a significant number of users have been waiting.

Technorati Tags: OpenProj |  open source software | Projity |  Microsoft Project | project management software