For companies with a new product, looking for exposer at a relatively modest price, compared with Demo 2007, see the Techcrunch20 conference terms, planned to take place at September 2007 : http://www.techcrunch20.com/
Archive for Product
Mashing up
The run to provide a mash-up tool or a programming platform for the non-techi’s is gathering pace. At the same company’s such as Worklight partner to create a larger offer, while Zude promises to provide it all. Here is a short list of some of these technologies:
Programming for the masses
For managers/business people who know what they want but have little or no programming skills, and want the job done fast. And for the masses with little/no programming skills (people like me) we have company’s such as Tersus . Tersus is an open source platform for visually creating applications (truly visual, no coding needed). The company is currently building its own new web site based on the Tersus platform, also to be released as open source.
Coghead is also a visual platform for creating web applications. Their product is part of a bigger vision to be part of an agile office, of the kind that can easily be created at the coffee house near you, or in your preferred location. This makes sense when you consider consumer generated app’s that are making their way into organizations with the promise to change organizations, and with it the way people can choose to work and make business — why then not create small applications on the fly?
Small-medium size business could also be good candidates for such platforms. They can easily and cheaply create the app’s they need and later maybe even make a few buck’s by selling the app they’ve created on a Coghead or Tersus like site, or even better, open source them and release them for free to get others, to use, maintain or further develop the application.
Tools for organizations joining the big feast
And than there are the many new mash-up companies who offer to democratize the mash-up experience for the masses. Teqlo for one, which allows to build web app’s with its drag and drop interface, has recently partnered with an Israeli company named Worklight.
Worklight allows organizations to export their SAP information as a secure feed service over their Myspace or other site/service their using, and will probably be offering many new features (apart from a secure feed for inside organization info and a mash-up tool) some time in the near future as part of the tendency to offer a complete service.
Something to keep an eye on is, how do you provide a bundled service with many features, without making it too constraining for the individual user and especially the individual worker? If I understand correctly Web 2.0 for the organization is about lightweight tools that provide the worker with greater freedoms to do the job the way he does it best.
Mine not their’s
And to complete the picture, there are the new portals (not so new any more), such as pageflakes that have to my view redefined the term portal, just by changing the term “our” portal to “my” portal, generating a really convenient service that allows to find the many services I’m using in one focal point.
More on the future – the Zude way
And finally there is Zude (final just for now) which is still not available, and until it becomes available David Berlind from ZDNet, who has tried it and wrote about it extensively is a point of reference. Zude offers all in one — a personal portal, a mash-up tool and agile way for creating small web app’s, it will be offered for free. For more information read or hear David Berlind.
Creating a Fund for Israeli Open Source Entrepreneurs
This is something that i’ve been thinking of since the Database project and especially after speaking with some of the CEO’s of Israeli Open Source companies about a year and a half ago.
There are very few Israeli open source companies that have a product. Most provide consulting services in various areas. The numbers i’ve got are dated and are only a random sample of companies i’ve come across. However, the number of a random sample of Open Source companies worldwide, that have a product, compared to Israeli companies with their own product (by percentage) is alarming.
Out of 16 Israeli Open Source companies only 2 have a product, while, out of 65 Open Source companies worldwide (list of companies taken from the database project) , only 8 don’t have a product. 12% of the Open Source companies worldwide, that this small, dated, quasi-research checked, do not have a product compared with 87.5% Israeli Open Source companies that do not have a product (or only 12.5% Israeli Open Source companies have a product).
Most Israeli Open Source companies provide consultancy services, the problem is that without their own product they have a problem to scale up and become competitive world-wide. They are usually a one to five, max ten men/women show. They need a lot of funding to able to train new talented employees. And, while training takes time, once their employees are fully trained and experienced, they can easily open their own consultancy or join a different consultancy in the same area of expertise.
While large and famous consultancies have historically, developed their own processes of doing things, which differentiates them from their competitors (Bain for example, has a reputation for being result driven) Israeli Open Source companies are usually depended on the exceptional skills and reputation of their founder, and therefore are hardly able to scale up* (there is a limit to the amount of work one person is able to do).
One possible reason for this situation is funding. Israeli VC’s have only recently began considering investment’s in Open Source companies, and there aren’t that many, Israeli Open Source companies to be investing in.
There may also be a culture problem between VC’s and Open Source entrepreneurs. Each operates with a different set of values and priorities which are in many instances conflicting.
Open Source is about “reuse” of technology already out there and its also about organic growth. Open Source companies usually involve many stakeholders, such as community of users, customers and employees (which are in some instances prominent figures within the community) this involves a more democratized process then the one usually required from a start-up company. However seems that at-least this last attribute of open source companies will/is becoming part of many non-open-source companies attributes.
On the other hand, government funding programmes involve a licensing policy that conflicts with Open Source companies licensing programmes.
Seems that government funding at Israel has not yet discovered Open Source and the considerable economic benefits associated with FOSS.
For more figures about the economic benefits associated with FOSS refer to the EU Study “Economic impact of Open Source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication technologies ICT sector in the EU”, published on Nov 20, 2006 were Open Source is considered a power of growth for the EU countries.
Possible growing venues include, merging three to four, Israeli Open Source companies and creating one or two, medium size companies that provide a full solution to their customers.
And as for the future, it may be the right time to start considering the option of creating a fund that would not only provide seed money but also operate as an incubator environment for Open Source entrepreneurs that’s sensitive to their unique needs. This may allow Israel, in the future, to enjoy the many economic and social benefits of growth associated with FOSS activity.
*The exception being IT, were you provide a 24/7 service which requires a small group of experts and a large group of employees who are semi-experts. However such Israeli companies would only be able to provide services to their local market, and with Israel being a small market, thier ability to scale would be restricted.
Techbowl 