Insights into how technology and the outsourcing of R&D are changing the software industry

Amazingly investors keep throwing money at companies that are engaging in potentially illegal enterprises (re: local lodging regulations). Couchsurfing is in the same vein as Airbnb and Wimdu although they claim to be more benign (“building communities” rather than focusing on transactions).
The best part of the article: “Evidently, the San Francisco-based company plans to make money at some point, but how remains unclear: Fenton said they’re going to experiment with a number of revenue models in the future to try and find one that doesn’t interfere with the user experience whatsoever.”

Translation: “We have no idea what the fuck we’re doing, but thanks for the money.”

I think it’s now clear that I should make up a fake company idea, say that it’s going to be just like XXXCo (pick any overvalued, stupid idea), take the money and then move to an exotic locale with no extradition rights. You’ll all be invited to visit. Pina coladas for everyone…on the house.

Now, I’m not saying that Meg Whitman reads my blog or calls me for advice, but I’m glad to see they followed my suggestion last month to make WebOS an open source project.

Open sourcing WebOS and HP’s statements of continued financial support to the project, really gives WebOS one last chance to fulfill its promise.  Although it’s hard to really know what the plan is from Whitman’s and Andreesen’s recent comments.

When HP originally bought Palm, I thought it would give WebOS a chance to be embraced by the developer community.  I figured the combination of HP’s resources to both take the product to the next level and make it a mainstream alternative in the enterprise (both via HP’s market position in desktop and mobile devices) plus the strong developer relationships it had accumulated via its other software products would push WebOS into a viable competitor to Apple and Google, or at least to the top of the second tier among RIM and Microsoft.

If I were a handset manufacturer, WebOS could give me cover in case the litigation between Oracle and Google or Apple and the Android OEMs goes the wrong way. Or as a way to differentiate its devices from the other OEMs instead of developing it’s own OS as Samsung has done with Bada. I’m not sure however, as some have suggested, that WebOS would provide any leverage for an OEM in discussions with Google or Microsoft.

Personally I hope the open source community throws its efforts behind WebOS. I think it is at worst the 4th best platform alternative out there (iOS, Android, WP7, WebOS, then QNX). But one of my favorite quotes is “Hope is not a plan” (h/t @michaelombardi), so I hope that Meg and Marc have a plan.

What’s your POV?

Recently new HP CEO Meg Whitman announced that the company will keep Personal Systems Group as a part of HP’s core, undoing the decision that caused great consternation about the technology giant’s future and essentially led to former-CEO Leo Apotheker’s ouster and Whitman getting the job in the first place.

What’s a little disappointing is that it looks like WebOS may not survive, even if the computer and peripherals business does. And that’s too bad.

I used to have a Palm Pre and thought very highly of WebOS, even if the hardware disappointed. When HP decided to buy Palm last year, I immediately thought it was a great decision and that HP had the ability to make WebOS a force in the mobile community — something that Palm couldn’t accomplish on it’s own — because if HP’s place in the enterprise.

I still think that WebOS has a lot going for it. If HP does abandon it, I hope that they might donate the code, to an organization like the Apache Foundation, and see whether developers would build off a strong core and create a TRUE open source mobile operating system.   It’s clear by speed at which WebOS tablets sold at $99 that it’s not a matter of the quality of the OS, just the opportunity it was provided.

What do you think?

In a somewhat surprising announcement one the first day of their MAX 2011, Adobe Systems announced that it was acquiring Nitobi Systems, the creator of PhoneGap.

At Ness we’re big supporters of PhoneGap and have used it for clients in some cases, so we’re happy to see this deal happen (not at happy as the Nitobi guys are ) as we think it will lead to more enhancements to an already strong platform.

I think this is an important development that mobile devs needs to pay attention to.  There are three things that I think mobile developers should take away from the announcement:

1. Adobe is Looking Forward

With the purchase of Nitobi and Typekit, Adobe signals that it is unequivocally moving to reorient their development tools and “Write Once, Deploy Anywhere” strategy around Open Web standards of HTML5, JavaScript and CSS and moving on from the legacy of Flash. This is great news for all developers for two reasons: first from a skills development perspective it simplifies things. Secondly all of Adobe’s energies will be to ensure that their industry-leading tools will stay there. Certainly this is part of a plan to re-engage and re-energize the developer community who on average prefers an open, rather than proprietary approach.

2. It’s a Great Fit

This was a surprising deal to me only because I didn’t think Adobe was shopping for one of the mobile cross-platform framework companies. But it makes a ton of sense. Now developers can create the apps in HTML5 using Adobe CS5 and then deploy that code into native binaries via the PhoneGap framework with the click of a button. Dead easy (oversimplification, but you get the idea). I expect that the integration between CS5 and PhoneGap will improve over time to make it a seamless experience.

And I expect that this is the end of Adobe’s Packager for iPhone to translate CS5/Flash files into iOS compatible code. Good. I hope they put the extra development dollars from that project right into PhoneGap.

Further Adobe also released the third public preview of Adobe Edge a HTML5 motion and interaction design tool that enables Flash-like animation to websites and mobile apps via the Open Web Holy Trinity (HTML5/JS/CSS3, not to be confused with onion/celery/carrot for you cooking fans).

This has a chance to really get devs excited about Adobe again…not that Adobe hasn’t had great products all along  – they have – but with all the posturing over Flash in their spat with Apple, they haven’t generated the excitement with the developer community that they had in years past. That should change now.

3. Adobe Continues PhoneGap’s Open Source Culture

Initially I wondered whether Adobe would continue to keep PhoneGap open source and include the developer community in enhancing the platform or if it might simply make the code available as Google does with Android. But Adobe was pretty emphatic in its support of the Open Source community as the code was donated to the Apache Software Foundation.

The Open Source nature of PhoneGap is part of what made it so popular with developers.

Now if I was cynical or suspicious I’d think that the donation to ASF was the final effort of the Nitobi management to ensure its legacy is maintained. Perhaps the Nitobi founders made it a condition of the deal?  You only have to modestly parse the statements in the press release to say that Adobe endorsed the decision post the transaction, not encouraged it.  Who knows and who cares. What’s important is that it’s done.

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Are you using PhoneGap already? Does this announcement make you more or less interested in it as an option for mobile development?  Let me know in the comments.

Oh, and one more thing. Do you think Samsung, Motorola and RIM will stop advertising Flash compatibility as a reason not to buy an iPad now? God, I hope so.

In case you were at the beach, shaken up by an earthquake or lost power during a hurricane this summer (I did all three in the past month) and somehow missed our webinar on mobile strategy, fear not. We captured the whole thing for you watch on YouTube.

In the webinar, Jean-Noel Lau Keng of Amadeus and I cover

• The state of the mobile industry (for those of you looking for stats)
• Common challenges in approaching mobile development initiatives
• Why mobile has become a critical channel in the travel sector, and how Amadeus are integrating mobile into their products and services
• How Transaction v. Engagement objectives may impact the approach you take to mobile
• The approach Amadeus has taken to address the mobile imperative, unexpected challenges, and the results of the company’s mobile initiative
• What are the 5 key steps your organization should take to implement a successful mobile strategy

If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments.