Slashdot Mirror
Eazel: The Honeymoon's Over
OdinHuntr writes: "Newsforge has an article detailing Eazel's layoff of over 50% of its workforce. Quite a day, eh?" And GrokSoup writes: "According to News.com, Eazel laid off 40 employees today -- or more than half of its staff. The company says it is trying to get its "... burn rate and business plan in line with the more sober economic environment," but we all know what that means. Don't we?" Update: 03/14 03:20 AM by T : And on a slightly more positive note, Dan Gillmor writes: "Hey, I stopped by Eazel today and Andy H showed me a nifty (but as yet unreleased) RSS viewer that's an intelligent icon on the Nautilus desktop ... I posted a screen shot in today's weblog."
oh wait, everyone is getting laid off. that's open sores for you i guess huh?
By your logic, no open-source company will ever be able to stay in business providing anything to the end user.
If you can do it with HP, you're a better man than Carly. Trying to sell "HP Services" that set up and manage networks when HP doesn't even manage its own internal network? Putting $500 eMachines on the desks of newly hired engineers? Selling off the LaserJet division (the only division that's made profit projections in recent years) bit by bit? Forcing everyone to give up their annual raises, cutting staff three months later, and claiming they have nothing to do with each other?
Let's face it -- Fiorina keeps announcing grandiose service-selling schemes while divesting everything that makes anything. Selling inkjet cartridges won't keep the company afloat.
The problem isn't keeping expenses down. The problem is selling something that people want to buy. You're not going to sell enough $400 Pavilions to make up for no one hiring HP Network Engineers, not even if you throw in a free $40 Inkjet.
Eazel come and Eazel go!
When I cliked on this article the banner ad read:
"How does "Free Software" make money"
Seems to me, based on the profits (or should I say lack of same) shown my most of the free software companies, the answer is....
They don't
On the plus side, at least now I don't feel foolish for being a smart guy in the tech industry for ~10 years, and *not* being a multimillionaire.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I like your post. I wish we could post it every ten years. Remember Junk Bonds? Those were the high risk gambling of the 80's, Aeronotics were the 60's, Stock Exchanges in General in the 1920's, Gold in the 1850's. (War was the way to make it big in the 1930's and for millenia before before for that matter.)
Every ten years produces young ambitious people that want to make millions by the time they are 30 and are willing to gamble the rest of their lives for it.
This is an excellent article. Whereas the layoffs are sad, sad news (and happening all over), there are reasons to keep plowing ahead.
Dan Gillmor wrote in his article:
I've decided to give Linux and Nautilus the acid test. I'm going to load them on a laptop before my next trip and see if I can survive on the road without Windows. Stay tuned.
We routinely travel all over the world with our Linux-based laptops. We configured them with Gnome and KDE, and they all have StarOffice 5.2. We're thus able to open all the Microsoft Office documents from Linux in case it's necessary.
Cheers!
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
Yes, Open Sourcing Mozilla was the best thing Netscape could do. Too bad that it took two years to get it working, MS walked away with the browser market on the Windows platform while it was happening. If we can get Linux desktops out there in quantity, maybe we can turn that around now.
If you think I tend to go with the flow, hit my web site and read my old interviews and papers. It's the same tune today.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Freedom of Speech doesn't mean I have to give you a podium to speak from. There are lots of forums like Slashdot where you can say what you want.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Depends on the contract. If you're selling yearly support contracts, the best way to make money is to be certain your users don't call - they've already paid, and that call is an expense. How do you make certain your customers don't need to call? Make the product very good, with lots of help.
(of course, now the question is, why would they buy a support contract if they're never going to use it, but that's a different issue).
One would think releasing a 1.0 product would be cause for celebration rather than a round of layoffs.
What is going on here?? Five months ago, the world was called Utopia, and now everyone is selling pencils? Come on. Someone else in this thread said something about FUD. I think there's a bit of it going around in this "economic downturn" or whatever the hype-phrase of the week is.
Undoubtebly it will go on, if i have to hack it my self.
.. it just takes time :)
What many people seem to forget is that there are 2 things that are important to the development of an open source project.
One is the amount of people, that number can get very large (like linux kernel, gnome, kde, etc) and then the project can grow a lot, in a short amount of time. The non free-ness of mozilla is costing them some in open source commitment from the communities, but once its 1.0 status, im sure a lot of frustrated hackers will contribute patches
Second is time. Just about all of the most stable, most used packages in any linux distro's were not made by big companies, nor tons of concurent people, they were made by years of development..
If nautilus and mozilla were droped by the megacorps today, it might take 1 or 2 years more to get them perfect, but then they would still be the best quality software around
-- Chris Chabot
"I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
Yes, I've seen Active Desktop. I saw ActiveDesktop in the IE4 previews, dug around, had a play and was upset (for a second) when they removed the ability to put web pages in the task bar.
This is not HTML, live web pages etc etc. Nautilus allows the icons to be clever. The icons for plain text files contain a snippet of the text. The icons for images are thumbnails. Someone was working on an extension where the icons for fonts would be a small sample of the font. This RSS viewer is actually an extension which renders the icons of RSS/RDF files as the headlines. If you don't want headlines on the desktop, don't put any RSS files there. No HTML pages. No floating windows. Just icons.
RSS is a XML-based format for distributing news. The RSS viewer in Nautilus allows the user to have files on the disk (either pointers to the RSS or the actual RSS itself, who knows) and displays the content of the RSS view (i.e. the headlines) _as the icon_. This file can be anywhere, the example screenshot had a folder with 4 files in, and there was another one on the desktop. No Java, no HTML, no worrying about ActiveX controls bashing your machine. This is _nothing_ like ActiveDesktop, which sucked for many reasons.
Very recently:
Lucent - 10% reduction in force
Cisco - 11% reduction in force
Both big megas. There are more. You could be next.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I was actually refering to how the whole open -source industry does better with the open code. I definitely feel for those that are losing their jobs.
But lets imagine that a great app called "super-pot" was written under a closed license by a company called "pots-RUS". This program was ideal for business who had lots of pot plants. When "pots-RUS" goes under the code dies:
-all the users get no more updates, this costs them to change.
-other support firms (VARS) have to retrain, or worse still lose customers to other VARs who guessed which firm would survive in the "potting mix planner" market.
-no other firm can come along and say, "you guys where miss managed, do it this way..." and then take over from where "pots-RUS" failed.
The open source licence protects the comunity (both business and others) who use or support the software.
If the software is good then the programers could open thier own VAR business and support the program themselves. Once the software has reached a certain level of functionality, complete rewrites are just not that usefull for the customer.
The only reason the GPL usefull in this situation compared with BSD is that people VARS can happily fix code for "pots-RUS", and know no other compaines is going to come along and release proprietry versions and hence make it harder for them to support.
Elivs
There's an old Soviet joke: "As long as they pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work." It's not Capitalism or Communism, but human nature.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
But for the most part, companies are GOING to spend more money on a solution that gives them the benefit of the software quicker and easier. Remember, no one has ever bought software for the software--they bought it for the benefits they can gain from it.
This then implies that the real business success stories in the Open Source world will actually come from companies able to deliver similar or better functionality in a package that is easy to install, easy to maintain, and provides benefits quicker than another solution. And in the cases where it is a dead heat between the ease and speed of open source solutions and closed source solutions, the winner will be the cheaper of the two. And by negating software costs, open source should win every one of these.
For those of you poised to argue the ease/speed assertion, how many contract programmers are being hired today at roughly 1.5 to 2 times the cost of hiring someone on full-time? And how many times to they end up sticking around for 2+ years? Companies hire them because it is quick and easy. End of story.
--
Actually, i think, a better title would be "Everyone: The Honeymoon is Over"..
About the only thing that could hurt the industry more is amazon giving a final death heave... Then the investors would run away, whole companies would collapse at a faster rate than current, thousands of sysadmins will be flipping burgers while a lucky few retain their jobs with a pay cut, and the world regresses to 1950, right before the we blow ourselves up as Gee Dubya Shrubya wonders what the little red button does..
(The above post is not smiley captioned. Take it with a grain of salt.)
http://www.eazel.com/jobs states that "We're hiring!
Eazel presents a unique opportunity to be part of an early stage start-up with an experienced team that has a passion for developing great free software. We combine the infrastructure and resources available in Silicon Valley with the passion and energy of the free-software movement.
If you've got a passion to change the world, we would love to hear from you. Please apply for jobs by sending your resume to jobs@eazel.com.
Eazel is located in Mountain View, California.
"
Maybe they sacked they guy/gal who updates there web site.
You'd be surprised how many Unix hackers are also Mac people. You'd also be surprised how much the two have in common. Both philosophies pursue clean effective design, one starting in the kernel (which extrapolates out into the user world) and one in the user interface (whose design sends tendrils back into the OS).
;)
The East/West thing might have some validity, but not enough to make a difference - all of them are smart people and all want to be ethically successful in business. It'd probably work out very nicely. Hell, I'd like to be part of it - too bad neither of them is likely to be hiring anyone new right now.
-- Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. ~ Robert Doisneau
It means that investors who were stpuid enough in the first place to put their money into dotcoms without business plans are balking at spending money at dotcoms at all, even when the dotcoms that are surviving are advancing quite nicely along their well-planned business goals. I'm getting pretty tired of scared investors crying in their expensive spilt milk over all the money they've not made. If they wanted to have structured, long-term-slow-growth for their retirement, they probably should have planned better and got better advice.
TheGeek
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
Kill the monkey
I can easily see Eazel and Ximian merging
Yup, I can definitely see that, and think it would be a Good Thing. They could create some kickin software and services with their combined resources.
--
Yeah, need another example? The Newton. Some truly revolutionary software was completely shuttered when Jobs shit-canned the division. Of course there are other failures like General Magic, Taligent and more. Equally too proprietary to release freely but not good enough to sell to the masses.
Last I checked the enterprise Redhat distributions came with a nice price tag. Redhat doesn't expect to make money from you. They'll make it from the corporations out there with the $$$ to pay for real support.
.NET to Linux is a clear signal to all out there that even Microsoft now admits the market share Linux has... and that is worth dollars to anyone in a position to sell services to it.
The fact Microsoft is porting
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
how many of those laid off were programming and other technical positions and how many were marketing and business types?
I dunno, but I favour the UI of KDE. Gnome and Tk have ugly UI, the applications more buggy and slow (at least on my machines, but I only got a measly P-III 667Mhz and 128Mb RAM so maybe I ought to buy a cryotech AMD?). However, I like the ideas behind Gnome and hope the project will prosper.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Actually Vanguard is hiring 5K... but for all sorts of position...
Morale level? I think the morale of my companies engineering department would go up if there were fewer people in marketing.
--
--
I like to watch.
Let's see that's:
I guess the dotcom plague is everywhere.
SirPoopsalot
Not quite yet, but they're getting there.
Out of the, oh... 30 or so immediate friends/co-workers that I can think of that use Linux, exactly 1 of them uses RedHat... and that's just because one co-worker gave it away to another co-worker one day. The original owner didn't like it.
Maybe it's just something strange about my circle of friends, but I don't see much RedHat on any boxen nowadays.
SirPoopsalot
In fact, the Linux companies that can offer end-to-end solutions will do well.
Oh really? What do you base this bold prediction on?
The site support.eazel.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.
and once again we come down to something along the lines of "Mac vs. Windows" argument. Lest we forget, there are other, better, options.
I say, screw KDE and Gnome. I prefer the elegance of the Blackbox UI.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Gee Mr. Withers...how come a company that does exactly what Microsoft did with Win95 is going down the tubes?
To be sure - i can't say that i'm exactly bedazzled by this company, and i'm not so sure why it's getting so much press.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
because Cisco doesn't hire them...they buy other companies out ;-)
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Not that I feel too sorry for them. Anyone who agrees to work for a company that has such an obviously unrealistic business plan deserves what they get.
Oh, but the Nasdaq went up almost 5% today, so I guess the economy is bouncing back!
My point was that using the last few days of Nasdaq closes as an indicator of the nation's economic strength is silly. I'm not saying that the economy is great, but let's focus on something more substantial that stock market indices.
This is how Open Source business sometimes works. I don't know why people are complaining. It's really no different than contract jobs. You hire people to write some Open Source code, they prepare it for public consumption such that the product can attain "critical mass," and then you let the programmers go and let the community take over the rest. Face it people, there's less money and less "job security" in Open Source. But look at it this way.. at least you hard work is doing more than just making some big corporation richer. And you're being PAID to write Open Source code. What more can you ask for?
I would say, that companies that plan on using this model probably ought to warn employees ahead of time...
It's a sad state of affairs when Fucked Company is a handy reference for worried employees... "Phew! Not listed today. I'm safe for now..." 24 hours later "Phew! Not listed today. Safe for now..."
What happened to this brave new world of Internet business? Sure looks like it's all going to hell in a handbasket from where I'm sitting.
---
Or maybe take state jobs.
Shhh! Dont give them any ideas...
There are two ways companies can make money from commodity software, IMHO.
The problem that Eazel has, is that as far as I see it, they don't have a product that will work out of the box. Easy-to-use must be that. It must be a no-brainer and ideally it must come already installed on a computer.
Ok. that said, I have one question...
So?
Another company laid off a load of people? Did you notice that the Nasdaq was down 6% yesterday, and the Dow nearly 10%.
The economy is slowing down.
I'd be pissed if I got the boot on the same day a product released, but I hope that these people knew what was coming - its not that the company can exactly hide the fact.
Linux isn't exactly the best money maker - check out VA stock. 'nuff said.
Blah, whatever.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
The article said that Eazel plans to make money through it's subscription services. Well, that's OK in a good economy when people have money to spend. In a slower economy (or recession), the luxuries are the first to be budgeted. I don't see this business model working during a slow economy.
Perhaps they should merge with Ximian and work to actually SELL a product. Open source is nice, but only for people who don't expect to earn money. When your employees need to earn money to pay the mortgage and feed the kids, giving a major product away for free doesn't help. Laying off their business people may be a good stop-gap measure, but in the end, they will have to SELL their product. GOOD programmers are notoriously BAD salespeople.
Companies like Redhat are trying to earn money selling what amounts to consulting services, not Linux. The Linux distributions are a nice extra though.
Well that settles it. Off to download KDE 2.1 stable.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Modded this up as Insightful then later hit the moderate button to find to my suprise that I had modded it down.
In the next version of / I think a confirmation feature (i.e. Are you Sure or On crack? (S/O) would be an improvement)
Anyways I'm posting this comment to undo the mod.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Please take me back to the basement and the garages. It's cold out here in the real world.
Hint to the people that still insist that money must be made -- hit up the corporations for in house customization of free software. Every day some unknowing CTO writes a check for an $80,000 firewall. Or how about those $60,000 proxy servers that are being deployed. Bill says would you like fries with that mail server??? (Now that big blue says linux is OK -- Fortune 500's can be swayed.....errr....how many Netware licenses are up to be renewed next month alone....
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
How did GNOME and Eazel die in the business arena? Sun is still going to package their OS with Eazel, and Red Hat is going to continue to make GNOME their default install. I just installed Nautilus a few minutes ago and right now I'm very impressed with it. I installed KDE a few days ago and while it's nice nautilus it just miles ahead of konqueror. It's really awesome.
Slashdot - contra bonos mores
I know it seems that way, but I work at Eazel and can tell you this is not how things happened.
- a big bit about real people about to lose their jobs
- then an update about a screenshot
Ain't the second bit out of topic ?--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
For the first "It's cause of the H1-B/Immigrant/Foreigner" rant. Amazing how when times get tough, people blame outsiders.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
--
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
Are you serious? Those in mega-corporations are always the ones in the most peril (apart from .COMs with absurd business models). MegaCorps print money by firing thousands of workers, and it's happening at an amazing clip lately.
My understanding (it's nearly midnight and I don't feel like looking through EDGAR to back this up) is that according to their SEC filings, profits are nowhere in sight. The claims of profits are based on looser accounting standards that ignore certain expenses and which the SEC doesn't accept. Amazon does the same thing.
I may well misunderstand the situation so don't be shy about correcting me!
Anyway, Red Hat is mostly in the business of selling software other developers have made freely available. How much original code is on a Red Hat CD? They're hardly CheapBytes, but they're not the primary makers of the software they sell, the way Eazel is.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
The John Gilmore article that finally opened after I finished writing the above has a perfect example: the RSS headline viewer. Oooohhh! First, this is something Microsoft had, what, four years ago? Something everyone hated? Second, if it turns out users do want such a thing, any other browser could add it in an evening.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
They release Nautilus 1.0, next thing on the list is to pinkslip half the staff. Some show of appreciation -- must be The American Way
--
Kiro
...by getting rid of marketing and quality control.
- Pointy haired Dilbert Boss
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~ the real world is much simpler ~~
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Selling software. It is an option, for a couple reasons.
1) Most "average consumers" still don't have DSL or Cable, and therefore can't really download a 1GB+ linux distrobution.
2) Profesional look. Part of the reason why people buy Quake 3 when you can play the demo just fine. It's nice to have a know-good copy, some documentation, even the box.
3) You know what you are getting. Put yourself in an "average consumer's" shoes. You are at wallmart, you think about trying this "linux" thing. They have Redhat 7.0 (sounds familiar), and ABCD-Linux (claims to be based on Redhat 6.2, but you never heard of it before). I think most people would buy the product they trust, especially when the difference is going to be less than $10.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
In an ideal world what you say is right, but my experience with a number of the larger consulting firms differs slightly - what the consultants tend to do is rollout the same solution for each problem/project and tweak it a bit to fit the client. This is not necessarily the best way to do things.
Its simply a question of economies of scale - it is much more expensive to create unique solutions for each project than it is to create a few templates and slot them into place in each client's business. The downside (for the client) is that you end up with lots of clients who haven't quite got what they paid for. Or even asked for.
I think you are on the right track in suggesting free software consulting - the trick will be in creating consulting firms that aren't afraid to do the job properly. I can tell you now - there's no way in the world I'd let IBM through the doors again, Linux or no Linux.
You are right- OSS is not a commodity and there is no money to be made treating it as such. The real commodity is service, hardware, etc.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I asked someone in the know about the new Microsoft SharePoint portal server, and they didn't seem to think it supported RSS headlines. (Big deal, I wrote one in about 50 lines of code..)
I forgot to ask if it supported Microsoft ActiveChannels (g)
And just this morning they released new software huh? hmmm... Sounds like they needed those people to stay to the project completion and then fired them. This is not rare at all... see previous article (programmers and job hunts...)
--------------------------------- Born Again Bourne Again Believer: New Life, GNU/Linux Be Free!
I have played with Nautilus all day yesterday, and a good part of this morning, after reading some reviews, I am not to sure Nautilus is a good thing. I think alot of its Ideas are golden, but one seems to bother me 100%, "snip" The Eazel icons can represent files in intelligent ways, including making calls out to the Web,"/snip" Is this something that can be missused? Is it wise to add this type of "dumb" functionality to a other wise very smart OS? I think eazel is moving in the right direction, for a more user friendly system. I myself will wait on E17 and EFM
You seem to have nailed it perfectly.
Looks like they laid off mostly marketing people, which they really do not need considering that they already have more than enough big companies in line to use the software.
LOL, thx
Eazel is a nice idea, and I was looking forward to trying out 1.0. However, I installed KDE 2.1 yesterday and was very, very impressed. Surely it will be the default in distros to come.
Nothing dies in the open-source, but GNOME and Eazel probably just died in the Linux-business arena.
Nonsense. I had a flamewar with you ages ago here on slashdot about opensource in general and opensourcing mozilla in particular. Back then you insisted that opening up mozilla was the best thing netscape could do. Now you're telling us that only infrastructure software should be opensourced. Well, in my book a web browser is not an infrastructure by any stretch of imagination. You just tend to go with the flow, don't you?
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Consider the morale level of the remaining staff. After a round of layoffs it's never the same as it was before. I worked for a small software shop that one day shut down one of its offices and let the entire staff go. Things never returned back to normal. Soon after the management tried to inflict some team building bullshit on us and the techies (myself including) started leaving in droves. Once they break their pinkslip cherry things are never the same. I recon it's the beginning of the end of eazel.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
If you work or have worked for one of these companies, please can you explain to me how they planned to make a profit?
Well, I happen to work for such a company, so I guess I'll throw my 2 cents in.
Your reasoning is valid, but it assumes that the only way to make money with software is to sell it. Maybe it was true in the past, when you would write a generic application, and sell it to whomever you could. Those were the good old days.
What the company I work for sells is service. Let me give you an example. You can build a powerful cluster 100% based on free software. Okay. That is, maybe you can. I personally can't, as I have no experience in that particular field, but some guys at my company can, and it's their knowledge we sell to clients who need a cluster. Same goes for securing a network, configuring a distributed email architecture, and so on.
I guess we're only called an 'open source' company because we use free software to answer our clients' needs, but that's about all the difference there is between us and your average service company. We do, however, release whatever code we write for our own needs as free software (and not just open source, which is not exactly the same thing).
So far, the company is still young and small, but it's not doing too bad. Maybe there's hope for business around free software after all.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Reality sucks, don't it? What will we do with all the junior VB developers, now? I guess they'll have to go back to working at Wal-Mart. Or maybe take state jobs. :-/
--
$ chown -R us:us yourbase
Maybe it's time that software slimmed down a bit and that people picked better tools to build their software. Too much money allows people to brute-force projects like Mozilla, Eazel, and Ximian even if their tools (C, C++) aren't very good. Maybe if resources become more limited, people will start paying more attention to tools and basic principles before they go off programming.
Err... have you ever *seen* Active Desktop? This is _exactly_ like Active Desktop. Who cares about the technology used to deliver it -- if it's XML, CDF or whatever is irrelevant. My point is, if what you want is live Web pages and headlines floating in individual windows on your desktop, Active Desktop had it years ago and it sucked. I was never worried about ActiveX controls "bashing" my machine... I just never see my desktop b/c it's covered with windows all day (like most people, I presume). So my question should be: how is this technology any more useful than Active Desktop?
I can't really figure out how RSS is much different from MS's now-defunct Active Desktop. Same principle: Java or HTML windows with headlines from various sits (CNet, ESPN) that updated throughout the day?
What's the big innovation here? Most of the world realized this was a stupid idea two years ago.
Well, I just came accross this story on ZDNN which related to your doubt about Redhat. And they're one of the lucky guys around, they split their share while it was very high and now they have enough money in the bank and market share. They profit forcast for profitablity of Redhat probably even next quater. As for others - SuSE are doing very well in Europe. Not very well in U.S.
Hetz (Heunique)
And thats a new feature???
with MS explorer 4 you had it turned on as default long time ago
KDE had it since KDE 2.1 beta 1 but with a twist: you can put a web page as a desktop wallpaper, or better - ANY GUI application as a wallpaper!
Hetz (Heunique)
So I'm reading Dan Gillmor's comments on Nautilus, and this paragraph strikes me.
Let's focus on the positive side first. The Linux community has been touting the combination of the OS and Nautilus, a GUI plus Internet services, as a Microsoft killer. That seems presumptuous, to put it mildly.
Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pretty sure the Linux community at large has never pushed Nautilus as anything more than a gmc replacement. So where did this guy's impression that Nautilus was this big, phenomonal thing come from?
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
You've obviously never purchased a VA box. VA's stuff is much more than just a box that will run Linux. It's a box that will run Linux _wonderfully_. VA's problem was that they made too many assumptions about market growth. Their servers are worth every penny you pay. Lots of speed and reliability. How many hardware distributors do you know that
a) ship a custom version of RedHat for their hardware
b) use teflon cabling for their SCSI drives
c) do extensive QA on their prototypes so they discover minor memory problems on exceptional conditions, so they don't ship such things to their customers
VA makes a great server product.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Isn't that always the way, though? The market seldom behaves rationally.
I'm invested in two oil companies that have been turning ever-greater record profits for the past eight quarters. They should be trading at CDN$60. It's only recently come up over $40, which isn't much more than they've ever done.
Why aren't these stocks skyrocketing? Because of the market is fascinated with gambling their investments on long-shot high-tech companies that have never turned a profit and, in all likelihood, never will.
Thank god the tech market is crashing. Perhaps people will finally gain a freaking clue about *investing* as opposed to *gambling.* Which, in turn, can only help me: I only purchase stocks that have real value behind them...
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Software companies have a number of levels of support - first line support filters calls and answers the 'turn your PC on' type ones; second line solves the more difficult problems involving some troubleshooting; and third line is often the developers, particularly in smaller companies, who debug the nastiest problems.
As Red Hat is already a fair size, I would expect it has this sort of structure already, so that Alan Cox et al only get bothered when there's a serious problem that nobody else can debug. They probably also do a lot of new development drive by particular customers, which may count as 'support' in a sense.
First, a misconcepton: even private companies have shareholders. Being private does not mean the founders are in control. Quite the contrary, as anyone from Linuxcare could tell you. It all depends on how one financed the startup and what one had to give away in terms of equity to get there.
Most of the "dot com" strategy in terms of financing was to grow to the point where there was a significant economy of scale.
One problem: growing a company is very expensive. It's virtually impossible to grow significantly AND turn a profit. You'll note a lot of profitable times come after scaling back. There's good reasons for that.
So really the IPO bit is about growing to the point where one can make significant profit easier. Sure, it's a gamble. It's often a really bad idea.
In summary, it's already way too late for Eazel on these matters: they likely already gave away most of the control for VC funding.
_Deirdre
Will their software go on? I mean, really?
I look at the enormous work going into something like Mozilla-- literally dozens of programmers working 24-7 on something like that. Lots of systems, lots of coordination.
I just have to wonder whether when funding on something like Mozilla or Nautilus gets pulled, does development continue? Does the software go on, realistically?
W
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Here's my scenario...
AOL pulls finding. Mozilla shuts down or becomes volunteer only.
The focus would shift from the Mozilla "platform" to the Mozilla "browser", starting with Galeon and its brethren.
There'd probably be enough energy to wrap gecko in a browser shell for each of the major OSs.
Anything more substantial than that would really shock me.
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
As the other guy said, even privately held companies have shareholders though usually a smaller number of them than a public company. If you need a large influx of cash and don't want to make a public offering you're going to look to a single group for said capital. Often times that group will give you capital if you give them voting stock which means they have a say in how your company is run. You can also get a large influx of capital by offering public common stock, owners of such stock hope you do things to make their investment worth something but they don't get to tell you what to do.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
You've made two very good points. A Linux bandwagon got started because before Redhat decided to go public no one gave a fuck about Linux. Then they overcompensate by throwing money around like mad. If they had been forced to use the product they were supporting for a week rather than listen to some geeks describe the euphoria they get from writing C code they would have put their money in better business plans.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
IIRC SuSE is already turning a profit, RedHat (if current trends continue) should be turning a profit by next year. While this isn't the goldrush of last year, and there probably isn't currently room for a lot of large Linux-only players, there is plenty of money to be had.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
That means keep your day job while developing your next product.
:)
Hell yes. I am currently getting towards the eventual conclusion of developing a product, and this leads me to think of the one piece of advice I'd give to someone at the start of the road I'm at the end of. Keep your day job. Your employer pays you because you have something they want. Think about this in terms of being a business. You're also going to need an 'in' to various places - your current employer is probably as good a place to start as any other.
Mind you, I hated my employer at the time
One more thing: This alleged next product - make sure someone with a shedload of money needs it. Like, they cannot live without it quantities of need.
Enough ranting.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
20 or so years ago Jerry Pournelle, writing in Byte, said that in the future (i.e. now) the money wouldn't be in selling software, it would be in selling support (like Red Hat) and documentation (like O'Reilly). He was right.
Yeah, Microsoft is just begging for a cash infusion from the Juggernauts that are O'Reilly and RedHat.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
`No problem,' I thought. `I can just download the rpm's and install them by hand!' Yeah. Right. I downloaded the rpm's they had listed on the Redhat 7.0 page; the links for some of which were just plain broken and I had to cut and paste from Mozilla and use wget and some editing of the URL's to get the packages.
This does NOT make for good first impressions.
That pages also informs me that I should make sure my GNOME is up to date, but I'll be damned if I can get ximian's damned install program to download. (http://go-gnome.com piped through /bin/sh *would* work, i'm sure, if the site weren't seemingly down. I don't blame the Ximian guys, hell who knows why their web server is unavailable.)
I'm just hoping these guys haven't laid off any of the web developers because they must realize that for a company which writes software mainly available on the WWW, the first thing a user is going to interact with is the web site. It doesn't matter if this application they're writing is going to change computing forever, bring about world peace and exile Bill Gates to the math departpment at Wassamatta U; if the UI of the website is braindead, that's doesn't say much for the applications the website's gatekeeping or or the support they're going to want to sell to the public.
I thought these people were supposed to be user interface wizards, or something. Quite frankly, I'm not impressed.
So they have a website which has broken links and an install program which chokes for no apparent reason. (Don't even let me go into the registration system which didn't work.)
Let me tell you, nothing pisses me off than wasting an afternoon running around in circles.
And the little companies that do succeed are going to be the ones that keep their expenses way down until they are profitable, rather than ride the more extravagant venture capital road.
Wow, you mean like real companies that make products and sell them? As if that would ever work.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Sheesh man. People put their lives, their hopes and dreams and fortunes into these companies. They failed because the market is hostile. To most people that doesnt mean much. So I'll put it more clearly: They failed because they cannot sell their product and they can't sell their product because of the GPL. So the question you have to ask yourself is: do I want to exploit people to get my software? Talk about slave labour.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Personally, i won't install this thing. Just running Mozilla (Konqueror just segfaults on startup for me) uses most of the free RAM on this 128MB P3-500.
However, i'd be interested to know how far the developers have got with regard to improving the speed of Nautilus.
I'm optimistic about Linux as a desktop environment, but we have a long, hard road to travel to get the windowing environment and applications anywhere near the snappiness of Windows.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Redhat is following the rule that companies don't pay for software, they pay for solutions. They want someone to come in and set up everything for them so they don't need to think, or hire people to be experts. That's what Redhat does for a living, and they are about to make a profit from it.
I don't know how Eazel is planning to make money. When Andy H spoke at Monterey last year, I got the distinct impression that he didn't know either. I keep hearing about "subscription services", but no details.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
What would be even better is if everyone could get beyond the buzz words and marketing hype and talk about the technology for a minute. Active desktop and other such phenomenon (remember pointcast and the castanet push craze?) are usually based on sound concepts which are then implemented poorly. Integrating network access into applications is a great idea -- extending this to fetching recent information over the Internet is very valuable. Doing this as applications that just work as applications, instead of trying to hide their implementation is stupid. What's the difference between an active desktop window showing me the weather and a buttonless browser window showing me the same rdf/xml/html/php page? Nothing. Lets implement xml, rdf, etc. well in browser backend software and then give the user the option of how to be presented with that information.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Most of the average users or business don't use Red Hat Linux, however. The average users are using Windows, and the average business are using NT or a high-end UNIX. And generally put, when the average person or business decides to deploy a UNIX, they've got people on staff to help them, or in the case of the individual, they can help themselves.
So no, Red Hat's model won't cut it- they have to beat out users who know what they are doing, newsgroups/mailinglists/IRC channels, and people who have on-staff geeks to fix this kinda thing.
Oh, and I've been hearing that all of the .coms are "on their way to making a profit" for quite some time now..
-bugg
I'm not an MBA either; perhaps that's why I occasionally buy bottled water.
All your event are belong to us.
I agree 100 percent. Read my post from several days ago for a personal insight into this.
2 48&cid=270
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/03/08/0329
RSS on the other hand appears to be alot less heavy unlike active desktop. Active desktop would slow a machine down if it has a web page on it. This looks like all it's doing is grabbing a jpg and a list of links. Nothing heavy there. While on the desktop you may not want this, but with the rss in Nautilus it looks as if you can store these little snippets in any folder in your home directory. That would be handy.
as for my other comments on Nautilus, I think there's LOTS Nautilus is doing that has been done and some that hasn't been done before. This is the first time I can remember being able to tag files with those little tags (on Linux anyway). Others may have done what Nautilus is doing, but, to me, Eazel is combining alot of handy features into one app. No one app has ever done as much as Nautilus is doing, IMHO.
Gorkman
Man that RSS module will ROCK! I must say, Nautilus 1.0 is MUCH improved over the preview release and speed is good too (128 MB Ram, Pentium II 450 MHz, Permedia 2 with 8 MB and XFree 4.0.1). Now if I could only have the RSS module! :) That looks GREAT! I imagine having the headlines on my desktop all of the time and they be updated as I work during the day! I am using Nautilus right now to post this and I must say NICE JOB! Yeah, there's a lot of stuff some users (read ubergeeks who like crusty stuff) won't like or use, but I LOVE the way Nautilus renders the desktop and the default icons are beautiful! Eazel may just be trimming the chaff away. I did notice it said almsot none of the developers were touched and that's a good thing. Would I be in favor of a Ximian and Eazel merger? Sure. Nautilus is going to be part of Ximian Gnome anyway, so it only makes sense. I can now wave good bye to ugly GMC.
Gorkman
Well, OK, that all makes sense. But what about the end user? Is it possible to run a business which writes open source software for end users? How might they make money? Tech support is not an option, since that would encourage the company to make hard-to-use software. Selling copies of the software is not really an option, since competitors can buy one copy and start selling it themselves. What other options exist?
------
the future (i.e. now) the money wouldn't be in selling software, it would be in selling support (like Red Hat) and documentation (like O'Reilly)
It's been said before, but... if you make your money off of support, what is your insentive to write interfaces so good that users rarely need help?
------
I don't speak for Eazel, but as one of the remaining staff members, I don't think this is a fair summation of the morals of Eazel's executives, and it pains me to read it.
If you ever have the good fortune work with Bud and Andy for a few weeks, you'll know they're some of the most ethical and compassionate people in the computer industry.
I've been through layoffs at several respected companies, and Eazel's treatment of the remaining staff is the most generous and kind I've ever experienced.
Would you believe several staff members are even insisting on continuing their work unpaid --- or making Eazel open-source their part of the process so that they'll be be to do so?
Microsoft is NOT cheaper.
:)
I have been an NT 4.0 MCSE for about 3 years at this point.
I have been working with NT Server 4.0 and Citrix WinFrame/MetaFrame for 3.5 years.
I have been a Citrix CCA for 1 year.
I have yet to see an install where the cost of labor (using a consultant) is not at LEAST 25% more than the costs of hardware and software, and with a credible company (I used to work for a fly-by-night MCSP, but it paid well), it is easily double.
A real NT4 network setup by experts or at least qualified morons used to set a company back $5000 or so for the network design, and actually setting up the PDC/BDC. Want Exchange? Gonna cost you another 1-2 thousand in costs.
It adds up.
MCSEs make less than Unix admins, but not by that much. Also, the MCSE is the only easy to use requirement for NT Admins, and the MCSE exams are a joke. The real NT admin knows the resource kit and registry reasonably well, including LOTS of command line tools and scripting. You can get an NT 4.0 MCSE (and I'd assume Win2K, but I don't use Win2K, so no need to recertify) without real knowledge.
Hence the low reputation of NT Admins.
It's not that NT Admins are dumb for being NT Admins. I mean, I would say that all things being equal, obtaining an MCSE makes you a bit more knowledgable (even with the damned test-prep books, I used the Resource Kit to learn), I mean, you'll learn something when studying. The problem is that things aren't equal, and unqualified people are becoming MCSEs.
MSDN, KB, etc., it find for a software developer, and it gets you mostly there. Realistically you need the giant super-duper MSDN package for developers, and I forget the price on it but it isn't that bad. If I want to support my application on Windows NT, I use this option. However, that doesn't help me get it on Linux. To get it on RedHat Linux, time to call RedHat. RedHat Linux IS an important platform these days.
Solaris is it's own mess. For starters, my admins make another $10K-$20K, and Ultra Sparc hardware is comparitively more expensive than Intel equivalents, sometimes significantly. I would suggest that my $2000-$3000 Linux server that includes mirrored IDE drivers, would require about $5000-$6000 for the equivalent Sun box. Getting Solaris happy on an Intel solution is a nightmare, and I haven't seen anyone selling Intel solutions for Solaris is a LONG time.
RedHat Linux may often be more expensive than Solaris/Win2K, it is then not the right option. If Solaris is the most cost effective, call up Sun's local rep. If Win2K is the solution, go to the computer store and pick it up or call your local MCSP.
Pick the most cost effective solution for your business and open up the checkbook. If you're in the Boston area, call Feratech.
Alex
Microsoft is DAMNED expensive. RedHat is damned expensive. Solaris is expensive. Not RedHat distributions aren't relevant (no corporate stability/marketshare/mindshare, sorry Caldera). Pick you poison, I chose OpenBSD... Although I still have an NT4 Server farm b/c I love Exchange.
Yes, become a game company. Sell an online service (monthly/hourly).
There has NEVER been another company that markets software to home users.
The entire PC phenomenon involved people being able to share data between home and work. The only things that people really bought were games. Most of their software either came on the PC when they took it home (remember when new computers shipped with Software? Before MS told them that they shouldn't do that), or they borrowed from the office. In a few cases, they buy a copy and give to their friends.
The entire PC Software market is based upon pirating software for the home market so that you establish a mindshare for the user and sell to the businesses.
You question, how to I make money developing software that I want to give away for free? My response, it can't be done.
Shareware CAN work, if you can get the businesses to pay.
Random tools USED to sell on the PC (disk doubler crap).
You need to sell a product or server that people will pay for that is greater than your costs.
Redhat would like that to be support contracts, but they don't have anything too useful. All they have is a dumb phone number/priority FTP server with the box. I haven't seen anything really good from them.
Also, if you write some really good GPL'd software that is useful, you have at most 3 months to ship it in volume to stores. Then RedHat includes it in their next point release of RedHat.
Sorry dude, find a real market. The Linux support market will exist, but the Linux software market won't.
Some other people compared the revenues of Redhat and VA to Microsoft and Oracle and said that it meant that licenses were all the money.
I would hazard a guess that if you combine ALL the revenue from supporting Microsoft products (all the consultants, integrators, etc), that much more money is made there than in the licenses. I would suggest that the same is true for Oracle.
The money is in the support contracts. Check with Sun.
Biggest "support" company? Compaq.
Whenever I want an NT Server, Compaq gets a call and ships me out my new Proliant. Why? Support. When I call their 800 number at 3 AM, I can get to a tech rep that will check their knowledge base, escalate my call quickly, or ship out a part quickly. There is no comparison.
You don't sell products, you sell solutions, and solutions are a server, often called support on Slashdot.
Alex
Because of that, a lot of the money is going to be made by old-line companies with a lot of cash and the patience to weather bad economic times, like IBM and (if I can do anything about it) HP.
Is that why you advised them against Open Sourcing OpenMail even though it would be a great addition to the repository of Open Source software?
I agree with your suggestions to them but I would like to hear it from the horse's mouth (so to speak).
I don't know about VA, but Red Hat is actually doing OK. They're on track to make a profit this year.
The point isn't whether RedHat can make a profit or not but whether they were justified in IPOing and fostering expectations as unrealistic as they made early on in their creation. A consulting firm with two friends making websites and balancing the budget can be profitable, it doesn't mean they should IPO and try to become a multimillion dollar corporation.
Public companies have higher standards than merely turning a profit to justify an investors expenditure. Sizable return on investment (i.e. better than if the investor just stuck the money in the bank) and high potential growth are also factors. No one has yet convinced me that supporting Linux is not a market with low barrier to entry. Dell, Compaq and IBM have already lead the way in showing the folly of thinking a first mover can win out in the Linux hardware world, I wonder who is going to prove RedHat wrong in the software space.
By paying people to develop software, they have the knowledge in house to provide superior support. Their people don't need to grovel over the code because they wrote it.
Any company that has developers doing support or being in any way connected to support services deserves to be on Fucked Company. Do you think Sun and Microsoft have their kernel programmers answering phones?
That's in the USA. I imagine that it's Mandrake or SuSe in Europe, TurboLinux in Asia. Red Hat is probably the solution for support. That's in the USA. I imagine that it's Mandrake or SuSe in Europe, TurboLinux in Asia.
SuSe has had difficulties. Turbolinux has had similar problems. The fact of the matter is that reality is strongly countering the unbridled optimism that most of the first-mover Linux companies had in the potential commercial viability of support services.
20 or so years ago Jerry Pournelle, writing in Byte, said that in the future (i.e. now) the money wouldn't be in selling software, it would be in selling support (like Red Hat) and documentation (like O'Reilly). He was right.
How was he right? Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Computer Associates, Sun, SAS Institute, etc are making billions in revenue and profit from selling software. Who is making anything remotely close to what the afforementioned companies are doing by selling services?
But you're one of the first people I see here talking realistically when it comes to Linux and business. Too many times people just do instead of think first: how will it cost me if I do it myself and how much will it cost me if I let somebody else do it for me? (excluding the fun factor). I build the servers here myself but that's because I think it's fun and it's my company and my spare time so who cares ;) but when you think of it: doing it during work ours will cost you loads of money: so call dell and order a few boxes instead. :)
Plus, with all the costs, it also has to fit in the knowledge people have. My university had only Unix boxes, now I'm a MS only shop, because we specialised in developing technology specific for win32. Switching to another platform will cost us a lot, staying on win32, with all the knowledge we already have, costs us way less.
Good luck with your business.:)
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I don't think so.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
or even higher.
So my question is then: why still using RH software even if you have to pay $20,000,- when you get MSDN, KB etc for free with your copy of Win2k server, costing 1200$ or less. Or get Solaris, (75$) and pay for support, from an organisation that is probably still around next year, which is not the same for RH.
I do understand what you mean by support and it makes perfect sense. However I doubt it that it will still make Linux 'cheaper' (as in costing less money) than alternatives that cost money to get a license, but are cheaper (as in: costing less money) in support.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Which desperately needs a replacement for CDE, itself a desperate replacment for OpenWindows. Oh well, CDE sucks, but it sucks less than OpenWindows, probably because Sun had less control over CDE. Here's hoping they have even less control over Gnome and Eazel.
__________________
Eazel has two advantages over Active Desktop. First, it doesn't try to embed itself in the background. That's actually quite easy to do in X windows, but what use is an app that gets covered up the moment somebody actually starts using the computer?
Second, the implementation of Active Desktop is horrible. Nobody who plans to get any work done leaves Active Desktop enabled -- it destabilizes the system too much.
AD, if it worked, would be pretty cool. There are still a fair number of apps available. And even if RDF is beyond you, you can create new ones easily with a little HTML and Javascript. Recently, I went into "what the heck" mode and put a bunch of webcams, satellite trackers, and self-updating weather maps on my Win2K laptop. Thought it would be a fun decoration for my office while I worked on my desktop system. And it would have been, if it didn't hang the system more than once an hour.
__________________
headtrip? that you?
t/l 40910
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Thank you for the news, and good luck on your Nautilus development.
This is what is really heartening about the Free Software/Open Source movement- People really care about what they are doing.
It's an extremely valuable (economically, and personally) thing.
We structure our world capitalistically so that we can channel selfish motives. But the really successful ventures will also channel benelevolence. Thank you.
Specifically I'd like to know how they justified their plans for IPOing or spending millions in VC money from peddling GPL software.
I think that's an excellent question for Netscape shareholders to ask. Eazel, on the other hand, was started as a pure "Eric Raymond says it will work!" play from the begining - everyone who invested in it knew full well what they were getting into.
What I'd like to know is exactly how people were convinced that these companies could make money? If you work or have worked for one of these companies, please can you explain to me how they planned to make a profit?
It seems incredible, doesn't it? I think in the case of Eazel, investors were blinded by two things:
You know, I feel bad for VA. They're running what could have grown to a nice medium-size company, and I think the worst thing that happened to them was that huge run-up in their stock price. That put them in a position where they couldn't help but disappoint. Eazel, on the other hand, I've never really liked. Nautilus is OK, if slow (although I haven't tried 1.0 yet) but it's only a file browser. And one that's basically a knockoff of Explorer, with bits of Konqueror and the Mac Finder thrown in and a couple of their own useless innovations (embedded MP3 playing). they were relying entirely on hype and the same sort of exaggeration of the novelty of their work that turned me off to the Gnome leadership.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Hey, nice troll, man! 138mb of memory, eh? You wouldn't happen to be taking the 6 or 7 threads it launches (each of which shows up as taking about 25 mb or so) and then adding them all up to come up with this number, would you? Because if so, you'd be wrong. Read up on Unix/Linux memory usage sometime - nautilus isn't taking 6x25Mb of memory - it's taking 25 megs, but each thread is displayed as using that same 25mb in "top".
The Free desktop that Just Works
Regardless, this is one of the major virtues of Open Source Software. If Eazel Inc. dies like the Maximum Linux magazine did, users of the software will most likely start an organization of former users who continue to develop Eazel. This is exactly what the Maximum Linux readers did -- formed Maximum Linux.org , to help support the community that would have else vanished.
It's not cool to use other peoples code... -
"H-h-hey, Mister? I'd like to buy one sandwich and one cup of soup. Oh, and if it's all right, can I have four plates and bowls so that I can split it up with my wife and kids?"
"You got it, pal. That'll be $4.50."
*fumbling with floppy disks* "Well, umm, I'm a bit low on cash, but I've got lots of code under the GPL!"
*blank stare*
"Please, my family hasn't eaten for three days now!"
"Sir, would you and your family please exit the premises." *watches code-jockey leave, one finger on the silent alarm* "Next?"
Staying afloat often means staying smart, staying quick - and keeping in mind your end vision. Perhaps in Easel's case, the sacrifices couldn't outweigh the dangers, so they simply had to "adjust", for lack of a better term?
Just my thoughts, take them or leave them.
My name isn't really Jenny....
This is something to take at face value. Most of us knew that there was going to be a shakeout. Those remaining will be the ones offering real value -- possibly through consolidation. In fact, the Linux companies that can offer end-to-end solutions will do well.
I can easily see Eazel and Ximian merging -- their business plans overlap in so many areas that it just makes sense. There's even some overlap with Red Hat (cf. their new services network).
This isn't the end for Linux. It's the end of the hype. We'll live through it.
--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
1. Make a product a lot of people want and put it out for free on the web.
2. Package the same product in an easily installable format with loads of docs and a support plan.
3. Give great support.
4. Put together a serious training program and peddle it hard.
5. Make your corporate support a subscribition or contract program to ensure future cash flow and to show future investors that you have a future.
6. Keep overhead low. Cheap digs simple easy-to-navigate site and few employees full-time.
a) A couple of programmers.
b) A small but solid support staff.
c) A couple of trainers.
d) A syadmin/network admin guy with a junior.
e) Office Manager and a receptionist.
f) A small sales staff.
g) A leader with lots of charisma and the willingness to close the sale.
7. Design your program for the corporate backoffice aspects staying away from the dead e-commerce buzzwords for now.
8. Sell to your firms and then re-sale when necessary but don't base your profits from milking off of existing customers, keep selling. A year wihout new clients is a dead, wasted year.
I worked for a great small firm that designed closed software for lawyers (some of the pickiest customers ever).
They had one leader, no sysadmin/network guy (the lead programmers filled dual task), Office Manager, Receptionist, Support Manager/Corporate Trainer, two support people/part-time Q&A, 3 programmers, and one Q&A guy full-time. They made money. They have remained solvent.
The big rule. Don't get a big head. Don't expand too quick but keep a keen eye on improvement and natural expansion. Know your customers, what they want and what they need. Give it to them.
It is tough. Look at your self as a small business owner before you start seeing yourself as the next big thing. I have never seen my niche. That point where I felt I had an idea to sell where I felt comfortable enough to start my own company. I have seen a small software company survive without insane IPOs and huge falls.
It can be done.
ACK
Partnered with Sun, Redhat, and Dell.. I am surprised they kept a sales force this long. With these they are going to get their product to 80% of the market. They are now going to be waiting for the product to start shipping. After and only after it starts shipping will there be endusers to buy services.
Get a free ipod.
Too bad they can't trim 50% off of Nautilus' memory footprint. For being a file manager, it's pretty pathetic to be grabbing 138 megs of system memory just to sit there.
I guess you're one of those people who thinks that X uses 200MB+? Reading the output of top or ps isn't going to tell you how much memory the process is using - it merely tells you how much is mapped. The problem is that two or more threads may have mapped the same memory area several times, making it look like an 800lb gorilla rather than a marmot. For example, Mozilla has around 20-30 threads active all the time. Chances are pretty good that all you are seeing is the same memory used by multiple threads in Nautilus as well.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Yes Microsoft was a huge corporate juggernaut in it's first 5 years too. It was started with billions of dollars and all Bill had to do was sit there. If either O'Reilly or RedHat reach 25 years (and I can see O'Reilly doing it) then they won't exactly be short of money either.
I'm not going to get militant about it, aside from this post on /. I'm probably not going to do much more than just not use Nautilus specifically to avoid using the Eazel services.
It's downright unfair and dishonourable to develop a product and a brand identification, and then once the product is out, lay off more than 1/2 the staff that had been necessary for developing it. Don't forget it's not just the coding that goes into something like Eazel (and developers were dismissed) but also the product strategy and marketing that must've gone into developing the idea behind something like the Eazal Services that they plan to offer.
This way of thinking is exploitative of workers (coders are workers too) and perhaps I was naive thinking that an open source company would be above this. I guess this happens all the time, at open source companies too, and this is just the eye-openner for me.
But to make a 1.0 release of a much anticipated product (would it have been anticipated w/o the efforts of the marketing types released?) and that very day and then turn around and fire half your staff is not the behaviour of a company that I think deserves my patronage, free product or not.
This is why employee loyalty no longer exists, because of stories like this.
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
"Where do you want to cash your unemployment check today?"
Consultants and contractors are directly paid to do a good job. They have a reputation to protect in their line of work. They are professionals that are in it for the long run because it's their own career. Because they are in it for the long run, they have an interest in doing the right thing, cleaning things up, and maintaining things.
Startups are a kind of hit-and-run business: investors want to get high returns on investment by any means, and if that can be done over a six months by hyping and without delivering quality, that's just fine with them. Much of the technologies that startups are based on (and busily patenting) wasn't even financed by the investors but by research grants (unfair as it seems, it may still be a good deal for society, since a lot of that comes back in taxes if the company succeeds).
So, no, I don't see much of a future in open source software startup companies. After those companies have extracted the excess value that free software has, they have nowhere to go, and I don't think in a startup climate they create the right kinds of long-term foundations for themselves to prosper. But I see a bright future in open source software consulting, contracting, and teaching.
Don't cry for the people at Eazel or Ximian or whatever, though. They are bright, they knew what they were getting into. If their companies fail, they didn't lose, they just didn't win big. They'll get by just fine as consultants or back in the fold at a big company.
Too bad they can't trim 50% off of Nautilus' memory footprint. For being a file manager, it's pretty pathetic to be grabbing 138 megs of system memory just to sit there.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Now that money has gone GNU also did well out of the boom.
We got lots of code under the GPL !!!
This is as good or better than a wad of cash in the bank. The shrinking and loss of these opensource firms is not so bad as it is for other groups. Normally when a frim shrinks or goes under the code stagnaties or dies. The GNU licence on the code is an asset for the community to weather the downturn and for other developers to use when times are lean. Elivs PS- I'd still like the open source firms to prosper, but with the GPL its no where near as important for the future of opensource.
An awful lot of the economy is in fact based on the attitudes of the public at large. Are they confident in the future, or are they victimised by FUD?
An awfull lot of what has happened over the past 6 months in terms of layoffs is part of the internet bubble shakeout. BUT a lot of it is not.
Alot of it is based on Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Certain national politicians have muttered phrases generating Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. They have down this to cover themselves in case they mess up, and to sell their own agendas.
But what this has led to is a self fulfilling prophecy. Because part of what leads to a downturn is fear, uncertainty, and doubt, especially when there are not other factors changing the market, such as a new technology, etc.
You can call it an irrational pessimism, which is what I have seen in some posts here. I swear, you would think that people would have learned to recognize FUD when they see it.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Fortunately, unlike most software businesses: if Eazel doesn't make it, their software will go on.
There is a lot of money to be made in Linux and Free Software. But that does not change the fact that being a start-up now really sucks. Because of that, a lot of the money is going to be made by old-line companies with a lot of cash and the patience to weather bad economic times, like IBM and (if I can do anything about it) HP. And the little companies that do succeed are going to be the ones that keep their expenses way down until they are profitable, rather than ride the more extravagant venture capital road. That means keep your day job while developing your next product.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
20 or so years ago Jerry Pournelle, writing in Byte, said that in the future (i.e. now) the money wouldn't be in selling software, it would be in selling support (like Red Hat) and documentation (like O'Reilly). He was right.
Best Slashdot Co
Support is not a 900 number to call for technical support. Support is not for end users. End users buy a pretty little box with Wizards when they want "support". Support refers to business support.
What does this entail?
I'm developing a UNIX application aimed for Enterprise clients. I know that one of the platforms that I want to support includes Redhat Linux. I could count on my programmers spare time knowledge of Linux, but then it costs me a fortune in lost time if there is a problem. As a result, I pay them $20,000 for their special documentation which includes known bugs, etc., and a live number to talk to one of their kernel hackers to find out the problem.
Next scenario, I decide to migrate my expensive, but aging, HP-UX system to a modern, inexpensive system. I see that VA Linux will sell me a server for about the same price as Dell. VA Linux, however, will send out a technician (who as access to their knowledge base) and migrate my system for $6,000 including server. Otherwise, I risk losing my system for a few days while they iron out bugs.
Final scenario, I have 15 servers up and running, with a sysadmin that manages them including server side support for my IT guys. My IT team is writing software to improve our core business. However, they need DB support, etc. My sysadmin, however, spends 4 hours/day reading Slashdot/following bug news, applying patches, etc. That means that half his day is spent not aiding my core business.
As a solution? I could get another Sysadmin ($80k/year), or I pay Redhat $1000/server/year and they provide me with their enterprise system. Each of my servers are setup in their system, and all updates/bug fixes are automatically applied. I pay them $15,000, and I save the $40,000 of half a sysadmin.
That's support.
As a hobbyist, I don't mind spending 15 hours playing with my system until it's right. As a consultant, if I spend 15 hours on a problem, my company lost the ability to make $1500, and if a $500 or $1000 solution solves it? Well, we'll open the checkbook.
Alex
I have always puzzled over the business plans of companies like VA Linux, RedHat, Eazel, Ximian and the like that plan to make money of selling comodity software. Specifically I'd like to know how they justified their plans for IPOing or spending millions in VC money from peddling GPL software.
I'm not an MBA but it is painfully obvious to me that GPLed software is unfavorable towards reaping rich financial rewards. Take software for instance. Lets say RedHat spends $1 million on paying kernel hackers and writing GPLed software and plans to make up for this in support. The fact of the matter is since RedHat's software is free of licensing costs and is GPLed, anyone can create a value added service from their software and spend less than they do but provide better support and/or extensions to their software by working off what RedHat has already done without having to invest the same amount of money.
The same is true of hardware. VA Linux thought it could become big time selling Linux servers but failed to realize that anyone can put together a Linux box and sell it. Once Dell, IBM, Compaq, etc decided to invest their considerable experience, market knowledge and distribution chains into the Linux server market it simply became who could afford to spend the most to make the most (just like Walmart vs. your local grocery store).
What I'd like to know is exactly how people were convinced that these companies could make money? If you work or have worked for one of these companies, please can you explain to me how they planned to make a profit?
PS: I am pro-Open Source and have worked on Free Software and plan to give away a considerable amount of software (20,000 code application in a few months) but I can't see the sense in believing that Open Source translates into corporate profits unless you plan to use Open Source products as a hook to selling your actual product (e.g. IBM).
Just in case people take this wrong, it really was a hard situation. It wasn't really like "good job, you've finished 1.0 and now you are expendable". Things are really cranky in the market. In my case it was probably because I'm part-time and it was more important to hang onto full-time engineers. It hurts of course, but situations can be really hard.
:-/
Also, in a way Eazel showed that Nautilus development is its core. Most of the cuts happened in areas other than Nautilus development. A few of the people at the VP have turned their salaries off, etc. Things are really tight, but for the sake of GNOME and Linux on the desktop I honestly still hope Eazel will pull through (and of course, I will continue to work on Nautilus).
Here's to better days
-Seth
"... burn rate and business plan in line with the more sober economic environment," but we all know what that means. Don't we?"
yep, gotta start drug testing.....and that's why they had to lay off half the workforce