Mobile Open Source

An interview on TalkTech TV

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:50:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Kristin White for TalkTech TV. Here you have the interview, with a demo of Funambol at the end.

Funambol has developed open source mobile messaging software that provides any type of mobile phone with email, calendar, and contact management functionality, similar to the BlackBerry interface, but completely free. I had the opportunity to speak with Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO of Funambol and a native of Italy. He speaks about the tremendous demand for free email on mobile devices, the effectiveness of the company's worldwide community of developers in building portability of the open source application across 1.5 billion phones, and his experience as a web entrepreneur in Italy in the early 90's. He also includes a complete demo of the Funambol application on the RAZR and the iPhone, so you can get a firsthand glimpse of the software.

Download Episode

A new look for the blog

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:29:00 +0000

It took me a few months, but I finally managed to get my blog in the queue for our designer to make it look nicer (yes, I have zero priority in Funambol, I know it is sad). Finally, here it is! I hope you like the extensive use of the blue...

The five best open-source downloads for your BlackBerry

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:08:00 +0000

If PC Advisor says that Funambol is one of the five best open-source downloads for your BlackBerry... you should give it a try. I have it on mine and it is quite good. The UI of the email client is definitely better than the native one. We are missing some features here and there but for your consumer email it should be good enough.

Funambol for BlackBerry
If your RIM smartphone is connected to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), you very likely already received 'push' email, at least from your corporate Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise mail account, and can sync PIM data such as calendar and contact information via USB.

But users who want push 'email' for web mail and OTA PIM sync have largely been out of luck... at least until Funambol released its latest free, open-source software.

The software consists of two parts: a push email component and PIM sync component. The push mail functionality works with popular web mail services such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail and it also supports any POP or IMAP server, according to Funambol.

Funambol Community Showcase #4: Connector for SugarCRM

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:46:00 +0000

Last month I posted about the Funambol Connector for SugarCRM, who won the "Project of the Month" award at SugarForge. We asked Phil some questions about it as well. Here it is.

Funambol Connector for SugarCRM By Phil Shotton

Q: Your project is a Funambol connector for SugarCRM: what does it do, what problems does it solve?

The connector enables Funambol sync clients to synchronise their contacts and events with the SugarCRM database. SugarCRM is a complete open-source CRM solution with its own internal contact lists and meeting schedules per user. The connector allows a SugarCRM user to sync his mobile device, in both directions, with his contacts and meetings stored in SugarCRM.

Q: How did you come up with the idea of creating this software?

I started a new company and we decided to try SugarCRM as a customer management system. We wanted to be able to sync our meetings and contacts in Sugar to our PIM software and mobile devices. We have a mixed environment (Windows, Linux, various mobile devices) so an open sync system was needed. I discovered Funambol and found that it had an existing SugarCRM connector. I tried using it, found a few problems, started digging into the source and (to cut a long story short) was asked to take over maintaining the connector. So I'm building on the foundations laid by others.

Q: What challenges did you encounter and what achievements are you proud of?

I'm an experienced Java programmer, but the end-to-end sync process involved many technologies that I was not familiar with. Web services, php, the whole Funambol integration. I first had to learn how to monitor soap requests using the Axis tcpmonitor, work out how to debug the SugarCRM soap interface (written in php). Then delve into the underlying Sugar d/b calls, work out the mapping of results into Contact and Calendar objects, and understand the build/package process of a Funambol connector. All in limited time. I'm now proud of understanding the sync process, and being able to very quickly respond to issues and fix them.

Q: How would you summarize your experience developing Funambol?

A steep learning curve! A lot of concepts and standards to assimilate before becoming productive. But the experience has been extremely rewarding, it's great to have people from all over the world asking questions, reporting problems, requesting changes and then at the end, saying thank you!

Q: What are the steps that you would suggest to a newbie interested in developing a Funambol connector? What are the mistakes you made in earlier stages of development that you wouldn't repeat, knowing what you do now?

First, pick a connector for a system you understand well, so you are only learning one end of the system from scratch. My first big problem was having to learn two systems (Sugar and Funambol) and a new language (php) and a new technology (SOAP). Have a straightforward environment (use the Java client for testing, don't go straight off and try and sync with outlook). Put lots of debug logging in your code. Try to have each part of the connector testable in isolation. Look at as much other code as possible.

Q: What is the roadmap for future versions of the Funambol connector for SugarCRM?

Item 1 (apart from ensuring that it works reliably) is to allow sync of shared data. Currently the connector only syncs contacts that are owned by the specific user, but sugar allows contacts to be ownerless and therefore visible by all. I also want to look at email sync, but this is a whole new can of worms! I also want to ensure that I can support multiple versions (of both SugarCRM and Funambol) with the minimum of maintenance effort, by making as much as possible driven by configuration.

I also want to look at moving to maven, and building better automated testing tools.

LINKS

Symbian goes open source: any more proofs?

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:48:00 +0000

Today Nokia has announced that they have acquired the remaining of Symbian and, most importantly, that it is going to put the code in open source.

A few years ago, when I was saying "Mobile Open Source" the best answer I was getting was: "What?". Followed by a "Are you crazy? You cannot put Open Source together with Mobile! Mobile is the most closed environment on the planet!!".

Well, let me smile for a second... Symbian is going open source. Android is open source. Mobile Linux is growing everywhere (and it is open source...). Nokia has bought Trolltech and now they are pushing forward with a clear open source strategy.

The two companies left behind are Microsoft and Apple. Ok, they are big, but not in mobile (yet, it is a long long road). And they might never get big in mobile if they do not go open source as well. The direction is clear. If you are HTC and you are offering Android (and soon Symbian), what are you going to tell Microsoft about the cost of Windows Mobile? You know the answer...

Now people will start realizing that the next step in mobile open source is the application layer. I am sitting on top of the pile with Funambol and I cannot hold back a smile :-)

What a day for mobile open source!

Pavia and a Silicon Valley in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:52:00 +0000

I have made no mystery that one of my goals in life is to see a Silicon Valley in Italy. When we founded Funambol, it was just an abstract idea, but year after year it is taking shape. We are just at the beginning, but I am starting to see all the elements coming together: entrepreneurs, universities and investors. That is what has made Silicon Valley the place it is today (quite hot, I might say...). Once you put the three elements together and with the right mentality, it can happen.

One significant step towards an Italian Silicon Valley is seeing Silicon Valley companies opening R&D centers in Italy. This week Marvell (a $10B semiconductor company based in Santa Clara) has opened a chip design center in Pavia. Of all places, the same town where the Funambol R&D is based (and where ST Microelectronics has always had a strong presence). A great sign for the Engineering department of my Alma Mater and an indication things are progressing in the right direction. I found out through the press release that the center is managed by Francesco Rezzi, a guy I used to drive to school every day as a freshman: I was the one with a car and he was a senior of the Almo Collegio Borromeo where I spent five of the best years of my life. He was known as "the tractor" for his unstoppable focus on the books. Small world...

Anyway, great news for the Silicon Valley in Italy movement. This afternoon I am meeting with the Italian Ambassador to the US, Giovanni Castellaneta. I was honored to be chosen to present in front of him, together with a group of people I admire greatly: Luigi Luca Cavalli Sforza (one of the great fathers of Genetics), Federico Faggin (the inventor of the microprocessor) and Giacomo Marini (one of the founders of Logitech). I am a bit younger than everybody else ;-) and miles from reaching their levels, but I will do my best to suggest to the Ambassador a possible path to a Silicon Valley in Italy. I know it is possible and I am sure we will get there one day.

How To Sync Just About Anything, Anywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:53:00 +0000

I saw this review of myFUNAMBOL, used with a combination of Outlook and Windows Mobile and I could not resist to repost it here...

How To Sync Just About Anything, Anywhere

About freedom and privacy in the cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:32:00 +0000

I wrote about Clipperz in the past on this blog. It is a company built by two very smart guys, Marco and Giulio Cesare (yep, you might guess their native country...), with whom I spent some quality time in the last year. They have a very simple idea called zero-knowledge.

In a world that goes more and more towards Software as a Service, the issue we are facing is that we are storing a lot of our personal data in servers around the world, owned by people we do not know - and we should not trust. Imagine how much data the Internet has about you, what you like (Google), what you buy (Amazon), whom you like (Facebook), your pictures (Flickr) and so on.

Zero-knowledge means storing the data in their servers but making sure they can't read it... It is your data, only you should be able to read it. As simple as that.

Their first product is a password manager. You actually store your passwords in the Clipperz server, but they can't read it because it is encrypted on your browser and can't be read by anyone else. They store ALL your passwords for all your sites, so you can login in every site with just one click.

Now Marco has posted a call for action about freedom and privacy in the cloud:

This is a post about freedom. The freedom to keep your data for yourself and the freedom to run free software. You should be able to reclaim and enjoy these freedoms also when using web applications.

If you are a supporter of the free software movement, you can easily opt for Gimp instead of Photoshop, or Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. You can also protect the privacy of your data by using the many encryption tools that are available (GPG, TrueCrypt, …). But when it comes to web applications things get complicated.

The benefits of web apps (ubiquitous access, seamless upgrades, reliable storage, …) are many, but quite often users lose their freedom to study, modify and discuss the source code that powers those web apps.

Furthermore, we are forced to trust web applications provider with our data (bookmarks, text documents, chat transcripts, financial info, … and now health records) that no longer resides on our hard disks, but are stored somewhere “in the cloud”.

It’s not a nice situation when you have to chose between convenience and freedom.

Let me be clear: web apps are great and I’m in love with them. But I think it’s time to ask for more freedom and more privacy. Here is a three step plan to achieve both these results.

His suggestions:

1. Choose AGPL
2. Add zero-knowledge sauce
3. Build a smarter browser

I vote for Marco... And he now has RMS on his side, which makes the story a lot more interesting. Let's see if we can push this freedom further. I am now working at a zero-knowledge Funambol, working with the Clipperz guys. Stay tuned...

MobileMe: what device manufacturer can do

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:22:00 +0000

I found a very interesting post today about what Nokia can do to stand up against the iPhone. Andrew is sending a strong message to Nokia: "wake up or else...". I like the part when he talks about recognizing the Killer App in Software and Services and the mistakes Apple is making (e.g. offering only .mac email access in MobileMe):

Ever since my days with a Danger hiptop I’ve been seeking what I call PIM 2.0, a consumer-friendly version of Microsoft Exchange that works with SyncML. Apple thinks they’ve got it with MobileMe but they’re way off the mark — it costs far too much and supports but a single email address under their own domain.

This is your chance, Nokia, to offer up something better. But here’s the deal:

1. It has to be free.
2. It has to support multiple POP mail accounts from other domains — bonus points if you can include popular webmail clients like GMail, Hotmail, etc.
3. It must also include a Nokia-branded email account — something like “MyNokia.com” would do nicely. This way lots of people get to see your brand name in their inbox. Clever, eh?
4. It has to launch soon, so it can steal some of the iPhone’s thunder — putting it out there with your new E66 and E71 would be particularly appropriate, assuming your July drop dates are on track.
5. It has to work on all S60 handsets!

Agreed. Every device manufacturer should be thinking about it, in my opinion. Man, I love how hot this space has become :-))

BTW, if you are a device manufacturer out there looking for an answer to MobileMe, I believe we have a product ready to go for you. And we can host it for you so you can be up and running in days. Just add water...

Cash and customers...

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:30:00 +0000

You might have seen it elsewhere, but... today we have announced that we raised $12.5M in our second round. The round is led by Nexit Ventures, the #1 mobile venture capitalist in my personal opinion. They are headquartered in Helsinki, with an office in Stockholm and one in Silicon Valley. The partner who joined the board is Michel Wendell. I have known him for years, since he invested in Bitfone. Together with our current investors Walden International and HIG, Castile Ventures joined the round. They are based in Boston. The partner who invested is Carl Stjernfeldt, who is Swedish, adding to the Nordic theme of the round ;-)

So, yes, I raised money from Europe and from Europeans. Strange thing for someone based in Silicon Valley. However, now I have people on the board I can talk about soccer with... and they enjoy my espresso (known to be the best coffee in Silicon Valley). Definitely worth it ;-)

In the press release, AOL was so nice to let us slip in their name. We can't talk about it that much at this point, but it is a great deal for us (they have 200M users and are completely focused on advertising...). You'll hear more about it very soon.

Now if Italy would beat France...

Cracking the iPhone in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:36:00 +0000

A few days ago, while I was in Italy, I met a journalist of Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian equivalent of the Financial Times. We had lunch and talked about a million things, among them the iPhone. Tuesday, he wrote an article about me where he pretty much stated that I cracked the iPhone... A bit too much, but journalists like hyperboles.

The same day my mom read the article and asked me what cracking meant and whether I stole something, with a slight worry I could go to jail. Considering the software was called Jailbreak, she wasn't too far from reality. I felt bad but I assured her I did not steal anything and that I am definitely not a hacker: I wish I could be one but I lack the skills for it.

Then on Skype I received a request to connect from Zibri. He is THE guy who made it all happen. The one who gives us Ziphone and allowed third party apps to be easily installed on iPhones. I was surprised at first, then shocked when I noticed he was asking for a connection in Italian.

Is Zibri Italian? Did the iPhone freedom derive from there?

Yep, he is. He lives in Rome. A friend of him read the article and asked him "who the heck is that guy who said he cracked the iPhone, didn't you do it?". Oopss. I had a nice chat with Piergiorgio (he did not call me to complain after all...) and I hope we'll do something together soon. He definitely seems a skilled individual :-)

Anyway, glad to hear that Italy is ahead of the pack in mobile once again. I had no doubts, but I still have to fight that perception every day. As quoted in the article, I had someone recently who asked me "Yeah, Ferrari looks great, you can tell it is Italian. But where do they get the engine from?". No, we do not get them from Germany. They are built in Italy, as Maserati, Ducati, Aprilia and more. They are the most reliable in the world. And the electronics too. On every Formula One car. We have the best engineers in the world, but we do not advertise them as we should. It is a high priority on my task list: it has to change. I am fed up with being know just for making pizza and clothes ;-)

Surprise: it is a mass market phone :-)

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:24:00 +0000

Well, I can't say I got it right. The Apple conference was really boring. Nothing new. Nothing special. It was still much better than Italy's game, so I casually followed Jobs presentation instead ;-)

I believe the only big news is the price of the 3G iPhone: I predicted lower than $200 for the iPhone mini and it is $199... This price makes it a mass market device. It will cost less than iPods. Yes, it is subsidized and you have to pay the operator for that, but that is a cost you already are paying (with your current phone). So if you sum iPod and your phone, upgrading to iPhone is a cost saving... That's quite interesting.

What is curious is that Apple gave up the model that seemed to change the game in mobile: they are not getting a share of revenues from the operator anymore. They are like any other device manufacturer. It is a step back (a big one) and I believe it was a blow in Jobs' face by European operators (due to the lack of sales in the Old Continent). I was reading the Financial Times on the plane and the contrast with the US is spectacular: in the US everyone calls the iPhone a success, in Europe a failure...

Now, Apple probably figured out that instead of selling 10M iPhones and make money with calls and data, they could sell 30M and make the same money (margins on HW are 30% max, so they need to triple their revenues to make it even with the loss of rev share).

And AT&T figured that they could subsidize $200 of an iPhone, and raise the data plan from $20/m to $30/m, therefore making $240 more in 24 months...

That's it, you chop the price and you make the niche bigger, without introducing anything new... Everyone is happy.

Oohh, they did introduce something interesting, though. It is called MobileMe, the evolution of the .Mac (not a success, by all means). For just $99/year, you get syncing on it. Or you can use the Funambol client and myFUNAMBOL and get it for free, plus it works on more phones, more backends and you have the code to play around with it... In any case, this is another sign that syncing is hot and everyone wants a piece of the puzzle (good for us).

BTW, did you notice the stark contrast from the enterprise solution (ActiveSync) and the consumer one (MobileMe)? Phil Schiller on stage called the Microsoft protocol ActiveStink... Way to push it in the enterprise... I believe RIM can sleep well for a little more, but they have to be careful...

Question before going to bed: why is Apple not using an open protocol such as SyncML? Why do they have to do everything closed? It is just too sad. Apple could be 10 times bigger but they choose not to. Everyone has its limits.

The iPhone surprise

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:52:00 +0000

I have been predicting most of Steve Jobs moves lately with a good degree of accuracy. From the iPod Touch to the Macbook Air (the one I am writing this post with...) and more.

Ok, I got lucky...

Tomorrow, however, is another big day. I know you are thinking Steve Jobs keynote at Apple WWDC in San Francisco. I am actually thinking about Italy playing its first game in Euro 2008...

---- useless comment ---- useless comment ----
Do you realize that Apple has put the WORLDWIDE conference of developers the week of Euro 2008?? Nobody in Italy and the Netherlands will care less about the keynote tomorrow... This shows you the lack of priority management in Cupertino. They would have never put a conference the day of the Super Bowl, I can guarantee you that...
---- useless comment ---- useless comment ----

Coming back to Apple, tomorrow is their big day as well. The new operating system for the iPhone will be unveiled (iPhone 2.0), together with the Application Store and a bunch of new apps.

Everyone knows they will announce the 3G iPhone. Most predict it will have GPS as well and it will be thinner. I agree.

That's it. Nothing more. Boring news. A phone an AT&T VP told us about six months ago. BOOORING.

Not a chance, I believe. Jobs likes to surprise people. He will announce all that but something more. Something that will make people say "WOW, they did it again!".

Apple is known to launch a product and then work on it until it is perfect, branching off children. They started with the iPod, then they did the mini, the nano, the shuffle. Some were bad (like the first shuffle) but then turned out great in the next generation (like the last shuffle).

My prediction is that Apple will launch an iPhone baby. A mini iPhone. A mass market phone (the original iPhone is going to be sold as an enterprise product in Italy, at 500 euros or so...). Unlocked. Only available in the US stores, initially. Below $200.

What are the odds I am right? Very minimal, borderline zero ;-) But if Apple launches a mass market phone tomorrow, then Steve Jobs might be reading my blog for real... I wrote 18 months ago that the iPhone was going to be a niche product: it is actually turning out to be a niche product (although the good news is that the niche is growing ;-) More in Europe (where they sold just a few) than in the US. What is clear to me is that a mass market phone would be a game changer.

In any case, I'll find it out once the game will be over.

Open Source BlackBerry

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:13:00 +0000

Now, I have been caught on tape beating a BlackBerry once, but we left in good terms. So much that today we have announced we actually love the BlackBerry...

Funambol has released two clients for BlackBerry today:

A push-email client, with integrated address book. Why would you need it?? Well, if you are like most, together with your work like, you also have a personal life. If you don't, then forget it, we do not like you anyway ;-) If you do, you might want to keep your BlackBerry email client for your enterprise life (with its own address book), but now you can get a separate client to check your personal email (e.g. AOL, Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, any POP/IMAP, and so on). The address book is separated, but it is synced on the device. So it is fast
A PIM-sync client, a tool to synchronize on your BlackBerry contacts, calendar, task and notes (also known as PIM), coming from the Funambol server. This is for those who do not like BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) that much, because it does not sync your PIM stuff on the device. It is a full BlackBerry experience, with a consumer angle. And it is open source, extensible, it supports a lot of backends and more.

On my BlackBerry, I have both. I use myFUNAMBOL and I push my Outlook to it (with the Funambol Outlook plug-in). And I get both push email and PIM sync on my phone.

How do you get them? The push-email client signing up on myFUNAMBOL. It is delivered to your phone, no sweat. The PIM-sync connecting your BlackBerry browser to http://my.funambol.com/bb/plugin.jad.

Here you have a brief video of me using the Funambol BlackBerry client. It is just the first release, but it is quite good, in my opinion. And it is obviously all open source (actually, the PIM sync has been built pretty much by the community, with zero or so help by Funambol employees... I love open source ;-) More to come, stay tuned.

The Google of Mobile

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Tue, 27 May 2008 23:32:00 +0000

Today I read an interview with Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google) on the Frankfurter Allgemeine (do not worry, it is not in German...). CEOs of US companies tend to say more when they speak with foreigner reporters, I am not sure why... Therefore, the interview is very interesting and a recommended read.

One statement from Eric pops up in the interview:

"mobile will be a larger business than the PC-Web"

Now, I am definitely having a hard time disagreeing with him ;-)

However, as Matt wrote, Google is not exactly leading in mobile. Android is a nice thing but it is not even available yet. Apple is way ahead of them, with a proven model (and getting a bit more open every month). Nokia is light years up in front. Even poor Yahoo is leading them...

Beside catching up, I feel there is an intrinsic difference between PC-Web and mobile, that puts Google in a tough spot: the mobile phone is a communication device. It is meant to communicate, not browse. With voice or data.

The leading data application on a mobile phone is and will be the messaging client. SMS, texting, email, IM, social communications. The browser is not going to be even close. And Google built its entire business on browsing.

How do you monetize mobile messaging? With advertising (and on this Google is strong).

However, for Google to dominate in mobile, they have to find a way to dominate in messaging (not in browsing). Gmail is not the way, in my opinion. Check the amount of users on Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail. Numbers are secret but rumors say that the first two run in the hundreds of millions, the last one in the lower tens of millions (only geeks use Gmail... How many of us do you think there are out there? Thank God, not that many ;-)

The Google of Mobile will come from mobile messaging, ad-based. Anyone comes to mind? Just kidding :-))

Android -v- LiMo -v- Funambol?

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:55:00 +0000

A post on the BFF caught my attention this morning. The title: "Android -v- LiMo -v- Funambol". Now, being put against two operating system initiatives is interesting ;-) Then I read the source of it, which is an article on ZDNet by Dana Blankenhorn. The title: "Whose mobile open source community will deliver?". Much better, now we are not fighting anyone, but we are battling to deliver.

Dana's article starts from the consideration that Android is too close to be open... And that LiMo is "a corporate billboard". Then he adds:

This is a mistake, both on the part of the companies involved and on the part of the industry. If mobile Linux is to really take off, then a development community must be activated.

This week Funambol made the first move to do just that with the launch of its Funambol Forge.

The new forge has many of the tools you look for in a good community site. The question is whether it will attract mobile developers generally, or just those who care about Funambol’s own software.

I know that corporate-owned forges are usually devoted to a corporation’s own software, but it may be time for that to change.

If other mobile projects won’t develop high-quality forges with good community tools, why shouldn’t Funambol Forge become the center of the action?

In like the thought. I would love the Forge to aggregate the entire mobile developers community. Our community is not building just an operating system, but a complete mobile platform for developing Mobile 2.0 applications. From getting the application on the device, to delivering the data to it, via a push mechanism, to managing the entire device. Full circle. Mobile operating system independent.

Certainly, if you have a mobile project with an AGPL license, we'll be happy to host you. Google does not... And LiMo does not even allow you to talk to them ;-)

Mobile operators buying Mobile 2.0 startups

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:23:00 +0000

I wrote about the ZYB acquisition by Vodafone last week. The main news for me is that contact sync is hot, and that owning a user address book is one of the most important goal for a service provider (and a content provider...).

There is another angle though, more generic than contact sync:

Vodafone - a mobile operator - has acquired a startup, a Mobile 2.0 startup.

This is big news. If you were to go for the quick bucks (some days I regret deciding to go for the billion dollar company ;-) you had few options. Mostly, Google. But they do few acquisitions a year. Or maybe Nokia. In the old days, Yahoo, but who wants to sell to them today? That was it.

Now, the mobile operators come to play. If you have a cool mobile application/service, mostly Business to Consumer (B2C), you have a chance to be snapped by Vodafone. Or one of the other 70 mobile operators out there. It is a long list with lots of money.

Mobile operators are realizing they will become a data pipe. They can't launch services now. It is too late. To prevent the pipe nightmare, they need to buy services that are up and running, to be able to have a presence around social networking and everything around Mobile 2.0. And they have to do it fast...

Vodafone is the big gorilla. They moved. Everybody noticed. Look out for the next one...

SugarCRM project of the month

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:07:00 +0000

What I coincidence. We just announced the Funambol Forge and one of the best Forge out there (SugarForge by SugarCRM) announces one of "our" projects as project of the month.

It is the Funambol-SugarCRM Connector by Phil Shotton. Phil is a great guy and he deserves this recognition. He put together two cool projects (sorry if you feel I am not modest, but SugarCRM is a really cool project :-)) And I feel mobilizing a sales force automation product is quite a need, which is just going to get more important with time.

Let me steal the Q&A from the SugarForge (hoping John won't sue me ;-)

Why are you a leading contributor in the SugarCRM community? What are the benefits that you experience from your involvement?
I started using the original Sync4j connector to fill a business need, and started contributing to its development. Then I was asked if I wanted to take over project lead. I felt it was my opportunity to give something back to the community. Being involved gives me an opportunity to do something of wide value, teaches me about the value (and difficulties) of community-based development and puts me closer to the end user than is normally achievable when writing software.

What inspired you to create this project?
Business need - I didn't want to have to maintain multiple calendars and contact lists, and I didn't want to be tied to Microsoft products so I was looking for an adaptable synchronization solution. I am grateful to the original developers who started the work on the connector which fulfilled most of these needs, and the great thing about open source is that if the solution isn't quite perfect you can go in and fix it. After doing some bug-fixes and improvements I was asked if I could take over the project and I've been working on it ever since. There's still a lot of features I'd like to add!

What business pain points were you solving specifically?
Managing multiple calendar and contact lists across multiple people, working on disparate sites and wanting to share information. I started my own company with some colleagues and we wanted to be able to share information across applications and platforms. We run Linux and Microsoft Windows so the solution had to work for both platforms.

Is there anything that the users should know about those? Something hidden/new in this project? Think of this as an opportunity to describe how it works to a user.
Synchronisation sounds simple but is quite complicated, particularly against a multi-user system like SugarCRM. I'm continually working on improving the synchronisation process, making it faster, more flexible and more error-proof. I'm also trying to minimise the install pain while still supporting more versions of SugarCRM. The hardest problem is testing, as there are a large number of potential use cases and also a number of platforms and versions of both SugarCRM and Funambol. I'd like to build some more automated tests to try and avoid bad releases going onto SugarForge.

What would you say to encourage additional community participation?
The more you contribute, the more you get back. It's a sort of selfish altruism. If you want some capability or feature, you are more likely to get what you want if you play an active part in its development. Even if you're not a programmer you can contribute ideas, suggestions, be willing to test and so on. The more you do the better the software will get, and the more you (and the rest of the community) will benefit.

What do you want to build next for Sugar Suite?
As a full time software consultant I don't get a huge amount of time to spend on Sugar, and there's lots of things I'd like to improve with the connector, such as Task list sync, email sync, more flexibility in selecting and filtering, and so on. I'd also like to work on building a really good duplicate detector for contacts and calendar, with fuzzy match logic and merge, to clean up all those duplicates that slowly accumulate and clutter up the system.

Thanks Phil, keep up with the great work!

The new Funambol Forge

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:58:00 +0000

It took us way too long, but finally the Funambol Forge has been launched.

At the new Funambol Forge, developers and other community members can work on mobile projects, share technical tips, and download software and documentation. The new forge houses source and binary code for the open source Funambol Community Edition and many Funambol-based community projects. It incorporates a new Discussion Services area that provides both mailing lists and online forums, as well as a new online support forum for the myFUNAMBOL portal. It is also the access point for all of Funambol's community programs, such as the Code Sniper and Phone Sniper programs.

In a nutshell, it is the site where you find everything Funambol Community, from the core software to all the projects around it (there are a lot, dispersed over many different sites...), plus the mailing lists and the forums. All in one place.

Our Community Manager Stefano Maffulli is the guy that made it happen. Yesterday, he fought the daemons of Internet Explorer in an epic battle, beat them and delivered a first release of the Forge (more will follow, the interface needs work). The Forge was with him. I hope it was the lady displayed in Roberto's post...

Mobile contacts sync is hot

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Mon, 19 May 2008 04:40:00 +0000

Contact synchronization is the backbone of social networking, in my opinion. Your "friends" are in your address book. Syncing them on all your devices is a key element of your social life. I always said that the company that manages to "own" your address book will own the war of social networks.

Among those that tried, definitely there is Plaxo. Thursday, they were acquired by Comcast. Just when they started moving towards mobile (they are using the Funambol client for Windows Mobile).

Friday, ZYB was acquired by Vodafone. They are a pure mobile address book sync, based on SyncML. Cool company. I met the CEO and I am happy to hear he is a rich man now. He deserves it because I have seen plenty of mobile sync companies but ZYB appeared to me as the best one from the get-going. And Vodafone is the biggest name in mobile. An acquisition by them means a lot.

Now, if service providers are out acquiring mobile contact sync companies, what does it mean?

That mobile contact sync is hot ;-)

If you are one of the service providers that is thinking "and now, what can I do?", I have a suggestion for you. Check my.funambol.com. It works as well as ZYB and Plaxo, when it comes to contact sync (and probably a bit better ;-) You can have it branded and with push email as well. Just give me a call. I have set up a hot line for contact sync yesterday...

When SaaS SuckS

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:56:00 +0000

As you might know, I am a big fan of SaaS (software as a service). I believe the entire world will move towards this model, with most of the applications used directly from a hosted site.

The first one to go is usually email. The second is the sales force automation tool. In the case of Funambol, both are outsourced. We use a hosted Zimbra for email and Sugar On Demand for sales force.

The issue with SaaS is that you do not control your data. You give your data to someone else and you pray they do not screw up with that. Companies that become successful have a 99.99999% clean record on this, or they go out of business very fast. Unfortunately for me, I hit one of those.

I use Outlook on my PC and the Zimbra Outlook plugin (definitely not the best piece of software Zimbra did, but that is another story). My PIM data gets pushed to myFUNAMBOL from Outlook and from there to the device I am using at the moment (currently, an iPhone and a Windows Mobile, but I am moving to BlackBerry soon... Stay tuned). Everything works great and I am a happy camper.

I have only one issue. When I am done with reading an email that it does not need to be stored in a particular subfolder, I hit the Delete button. One click, the email disappears and gets stored in my Trash. Once in a while (do not tell me it does not happen to you) I find out that one of the emails I deleted included actually something interesting. Not a problem, because I can search for them.

Unfortunately, our SaaS provider for Zimbra - a company called SonomaIT - believes my data is theirs. That they own my data, just because they host it. Therefore, once in a while they clean up MY trash. With no warning, my trash gets emptied and some important emails disappear. This drives me nuts: it is MY data, not YOURS. DO NOT TOUCH MY DATA!!!!

Now, I know what you are thinking: "if you really care about those emails, why don't you put it in a separate folder?".

Why? It is my data. I can put it anywhere I want... And it takes a millisecond to hit the delete button and a few of those to move an email with the mouse to a TrashThatDoesNotGetDeleted folder. The most precious thing I have is time. My data is my data. My time is my time. Do not mess with it.

That said, although some of the SaaS providers might be clueless, I still believe in this model. Clearly, I would have fired my IT Manager, if the system was in house. Now he has an excuse because the system is not in house. And I have a contract with a third party that I need to sue for Illegal Trash Cleanup. Life is tough...

But SaaS is still the way to go. Maybe not with SonomaIT.

Funambol on my Dash

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:00:00 +0000

I wrote before about the integration of myFUNAMBOL and the car navigation Dash Express. Today at Where 2.0, Dash made the official announcement of their Dynamic Search API and announced a few very cool applications from their initial partners list. One is ours, which you can see below.

The full list includes:

Hunting for the home of your dreams? Real estate leader and innovator Coldwell Banker® allows consumers to search for homes with the “Coldwell Banker Home Search” button. It allows Dash drivers to access real estate listings and property details from their vehicle and instantly create a route to them.
When and where is my meeting? Access calendar events, then dynamically route to meetings with Funambol’s “myFUNAMBOL Calendar” button. It allows Dash users access to their electronic calendars (from virtually any source, e.g. Outlook, Yahoo! and Google) from their Dash Express. Calendar items are updated automatically and users can route directly to any address listed.
What’s that tune? Mediaguide enables Dash Drivers to easily find out the names of tunes playing on their radios. By simply taping the “BakTrax Radio” button, Dash users can see a list of the last three songs that just played on their favorite AM or FM stations.
Speed trap ahead? Furthering Dash’s belief in the power of a driver network, the “Trapster® Find Traps Now” button not only gives Dash Drivers access to Trapster’s information about live speed traps and red light sensors, but also enables Dash Drivers to contribute speed trap information back to other Trapster users in their area.
Is it going to rain? Access live, local weather information with WeatherBug’s “MyWeatherBug” button. It provides Dash Drivers with up-to-the-second information about current and future weather conditions while on the road from the largest, most precise weather network in the world.

If you haven't done it already, you should get one ;-)

Linux flies on Delta

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:14:00 +0000

Last time I went skiing in Utah (gosh, it seems like a year, and it was ten days ago...) I was impressed by the video system. It had live Dish TV, exactly as JetBlue (that sports DirecTV). A tons of CDs of quality music (and I could plug in my iPhone headset) and games. In particular, I liked the multi-player game, very cool because you play against the other passengers and you know who owns the highest score (it gives you the seat number).

On my way back, I was a bit less impressed when the thing in front of me rebooted. I noticed only mine rebooted, the others were working. Then one by one, most rebooted. I probably was the only one not swearing, but looking at the boot process: it had a penguin in it.

Cool to see the penguin. Much less cool to see it five times in a 90 minutes flight. I believe I have seen Linux automatically reboot more times on that flight that in my entire life. Who wrote that application??

When Web 2.0 meets Mobile 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:35:00 +0000

Yesterday we have announced a partnership with Laszlo. They are the leader in open source Rich Internet Applications (RIA), that is the fancy little apps that run inside a browser and make it look like a desktop. In a word, the Web 2.0 engine. Their target is consumers, via service providers (sounds familiar ;-)

One of the apps they launched as a vertical is email, with contacts and calendar. This sounds familiar too... If you haven't tried the application, I would definitely recommend you do. They have a free service called goWebtop, which allows you to use their web email client to read your personal email on the web (via IMAP), and they just added a preview of their new calendar interface - which is the most beautiful calendar interface I ever seen (and I am picky, when it comes to user interfaces...).

They do not do collaboration and they do not offer a mail server, so they do not compete with companies like Zimbra, OpenXchange, Scalix or PostPath. They have "just" a web client. The match with us is easy to see. They bring the Web 2.0 experience to the consumers, we bring the Mobile 2.0 experience to the consumers - powered by advertising. Very very cool.

You'll hear more from this partnership soon...

Funambol plus Asterisk, Blackberry and eGroupware

noreply@blogger.com (Fabrizio) — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:25:00 +0000

I found this nice post talking by Tony Maro about a deployment of Funambol for a Blackberry, integrated with Asterisk and eGroupware. Let me repost it here because it is short, but full of very interesting notes.

This is a near perfect solution. I run an Asterisk Vo/IP system for my office, and eGroupware with Cyrus for our mail system. We migrated from Microsoft Exchange some time ago and I've never looked back.

With eGroupware, we were able to replace 99% of the functionality of our Microsoft Exchange server with open source software. With sieve filters users can set up an unlimited number of server-side mail filters, something you can't do with Exchange anymore, and the web interface works much better with Firefox than Microsoft's web access. Our Asterisk phone system integrates into the mix and will deliver voicemail to the user's e-mail box.

Now, with my Blackberry I can download and play those voicemails without ever having to dial into the phone system, because they are wav files attached to e-mail that is picked up by my Blackberry. I'm feeling so "connected" right now it's not even funny :-)

Switching to an all open-source messaging suite like this was easier than I thought, but when we did the primary migration I only had about 10 users to worry about. This made it much easier. I took Outlook (or the appropriate mail client) and downloaded everything to a local storage. After setting up IMAP to the Cyrus server I pushed it all back up - not recommended if you're going to migrate a few hundred users, but effective in my case. I then set up the Funambol open source sync client for each user to sync their contacts and calendar between the server and their local store. This gives them remote access to their data, and I have a copy of that on both the desktop and the server in addition to the server backups in the event of a catastrophic failure.

On my Blackberry I again use the Funambol client to sync contacts and calendar to the server. Within 30 minutes of getting the Blackberry I'd already downloaded the Funambol client over the air and sync'd with my eGroupware server, without ever attaching the Blackberry to a computer.

Configuring Asterisk to deliver voicemails as a wav file to your e-mail box is simple. I now I have a completely integrated messaging system that doesn't tie me to a desktop computer, and every aspect of it is open source software!

I have to say I am impressed... I wish I could set all this up for us internally at Funambol ;-)