Hi Mike, Ian,
has this been followed up on? Do we have some customer focused
positioning statement for e4?
Thanks,
--
Martin Oberhuber, Senior Member of Technical Staff, Wind River
Target Management Project Lead, DSDP PMC Member
http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm
________________________________
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Milinkovich
Sent: Sonntag, 01. Februar 2009 18:25
To: 'E4 Project developer mailing list'
Cc: 'Ian Skerrett'
Subject: RE: [e4-dev] What *are* we doing here??? <g>
Kevin, David, Boris, et al.
This is a really good conversation to be having.
I hope this doesn't upset anyone, but a positioning statement
with six points is not a positioning statement. They need to short,
visionary and 100% "customer" focused. The points below could be a
really good project summary, but that's a different thing.
I've cc'd Ian on this to see if he can help. He's pretty good at
this kind of stuff.
Mike Milinkovich
Office: +1.613.224.9461 x228
Mobile: +1.613.220.3223
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kevin McGuire
Sent: January-27-09 6:50 PM
To: E4 Project developer mailing list
Subject: Re: [e4-dev] What *are* we doing here??? <g>
Hi David,
It's great that you're thinking of this. Boris, McQ and I were
discussing something similar just the other day and to be honest we were
really struggling.
With respect to what you have below, this is the first we've
used the word "Cloud". It's pretty trendy today so maybe we should, not
sure. I will note that at first you're saying how we're extending the
reach of the platform (good), the second is a discussion about adoption
of technologies. The problem with the latter is that they are only as
useful as the advantages they provide, so saying we'll evolve the
architecture and adopt technologies ... to what aim?
My belief is that we need to speak in terms of practical
advantages so that a company will see real benefit in e4, either in
terms of reduced application development cost, integration with a new
breed of applications, or ability to reach new audiences by targetting
the web without having to completely abandon their Eclipse investement.
If they see benefit, they may be will be willing to spend some developer
resources contributing. Thus that value must be clear.
Things we said we'd do, and how I think they'll provide value:
0) Be more open as an organization: That's important for
Eclipse, and for people to know they can get involved, but I think is
only interesting with respect to perceptions of the past which hopefully
we're changing (hence #0).
1) Make it easier to write applications, make it easier to
maintain applications: This is a big win for anybody choosing Eclipse
as an application platform. In fact, arguably that's the whole point of
an application platform, that you have to write less stuff because of
all the hardened libraries at your disposal. Modelled UI, declarative
UI all come into play here.
2) Make it easier to contribute to the platform: based on the
notion that by cleaning up the code base and picking known popular
technologies like EMF, people can step in to contribute where they could
not before. Maybe more of an organizational item, but also a benefit to
consumers in the sense that they believe that if they find a platform
bug they can fix it, and if they find missing features they can add
them.
3) Enable new kinds of UIs: This touches on both the "shape" of
the application, so RCP on steriods through modelled UI (which, by the
way, I think we should start calling "Flexible UI", because the model
aspect is a technical choice only and does not on its own ascribe
goodness) [sorry Ed! :>]. It also touches on the CSS work in making it
easier to create new looks for your applications. Presumably this has
appeal to application developers because they can modernize their apps,
they are less restricted in look, they have more opportunity for product
branding, etc.
4) Something about flexible resources.... sorry haven't been
keeping up here <sheepish look>.
5) Extending the reach of the platform: web to desktop, desktop
to web. Reuse through deployment in the web or the desktop. This is
where the Javascript integration, plugins in Javascript, better support
for web widgets in the desktop all come in. The carrot here is reduced
development cost through reuse, and parity of application look and feel
for applications with both a web and desktop component (increasingly
popular).
I'm sure I've missed some stuff.
Kevin
David Orme <[email protected]>
Sent by: [email protected]
01/27/2009 05:24 PM
Please respond to
E4 Project developer mailing list <[email protected]>
To
E4 Project developer mailing list <[email protected]>
cc
Subject
Re: [e4-dev] What *are* we doing here??? <g>
Yes, what I wrote was weak in that respect. Take 2. <smack/>
Beyond the Enterprise, into the Cloud
Tomorrow's applications will require integration of hand-held
devices, desktops, enterprise server applications, and applications that
are hosted "in the cloud" and are accessible from anywhere. E4 makes
Eclipse the best platform for delivering integrated applications that
scale into all of these environments. With E4, you can now target tiny
devices, all the way up to cloud services like Amazon's EC2, all from a
single code base.
Take Eclipse's Architecture to the Next Level
In order to accomplish the above objective, Eclipse will fully
adopt technologies--such as Eclipse RAP--that have been in incubation
for some time, and evolve its core workbench architecture so that it can
fully participate in distributed and web 2.0-enabled applications.
Better?
Regards,
Dave
2009/1/27 Boris Bokowski <[email protected]>
What I meant was a position statement as defined by:
http://www.ericsink.com/Positioning.html
<http://www.ericsink.com/Positioning.html> (and probably many other
marketing text books...)
"The basic idea of positioning is that your product occupies a
place in the mind of the people in your target market. You are defined
by their perceptions of you. ... ask in which market segment you want to
be known as number one. You want to be known as the best of your breed,
even if you need several qualifiers to constrain the scope of your
claim. Don't think about being fifth place in a large market. Instead,
be number one in a smaller market. ... Identify the three parts of a
position: superlative (why choose this product), label (what is this
product), and qualifiers (who should choose this product)."
I.e. something like: "Equinox is the number one componentization
solution for Java applications in the embedded, desktop, and server
context." or "RCP is the best platform for rich client applications that
need native L&F across all major desktop OSs" or "The Eclipse IDE is the
most popular IDE for Java programmers".
Except we need something about e4... ;-)
Boris
Dave Orme wrote on 01/27/2009 04:36:12 PM:
> OK, cool. How about:
>
> E4 will emphasize two primary themes:
>
> 1) Beyond the Enterprise, into the Cloud
>
> Eclipse has its roots as an enterprise software framework,
capably
> delivering software from embedded devices through the server.
>
> E4 will extend Eclipse with the capabilities needed to deliver
> applications that live in the network cloud, whether on
services
> like EC2 or on your own cluster.
>
> 2) Take Eclipse's Architecture to the Next Level
>
> In order to accomplish the above objective, Eclipse will fully
adopt
> technologies--such as Eclipse RAP--that have been in
incubation for
> some time, and evolve its core workbench architecture so that
it can
> fully participate in distributed and web 2.0-enabled
applications.
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Dave
> 2009/1/27 Boris Bokowski <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
> Hi Dave,
>
> I agree with you that it is very important to think about e4
from a
> marketing point of view. Especially since we have explored a
good
> number of areas and should be thinking about what we want to
deliver
> (both short term and long term).
>
> It's kind of funny that you are mentioning marketing now. Just
> yesterday, I came across a blog posting about "marketing for
geeks"
> which I found interesting as someone who had a small software
> company in the past. After enjoying all the parallels with
what I
> experienced a couple of years ago, it occurred to me that many
of
> the issues apply to the e4 project as well, in particular this
one:
> http://www.ericsink.com/Positioning.html
<http://www.ericsink.com/Positioning.html>
>
> Ideally, we'd come up with a position statement about e4,
maybe
> something like your (1) below but shorter. Any suggestions?
>
> About (2), I don't think the phrase "architecture clean-up" is
> something you can use for marketing purposes. :-P It's not
about the
> intrinsic properties, it's about what you can do with it.
>
> Boris
>
>
> Dave Orme wrote on 01/27/2009 03:22:56 PM:
>
>
> > Awhile back we put together a few paragraphs describing what
E4 is
> > about from a (dirty) marketing point of view. Beware: if
you read
> > onward, you might need to take a bath. ;-)
> >
> > Seriously though, what occurred to me last night is that E4
is
> > really about two themes:
> >
> > 1) Eclipse has always been about providing great
infrastructure.
> > SWT gives us great infrastructure horizontally across
operating
> > system platforms. eSWT, eRCP, however, broaden Eclipse
vertically
> > down into the embedded space. E4 is about moving Eclipse up
in the
> > vertical space so that it can also be a platform for
cloud-based
> applications.
> > After E4, we will cover all major desktop and server
operating
> > systems horizontally and the embedded through cloud space
> > vertically. The enabling technologies here are Equinox,
RAP, and
> > [[the second E4 theme]] which is:
> >
> > 2) Code and architecture clean-up. Singletons are (nearly)
always
> > evil, but especially so in a multi-user environment like
RAP.
> > Resources can be anywhere. Declarative UIs are nice.
Etc... I
> > won't re-hash any more of this here as we're all well-versed
in it by now.
> >
> > My Question:
> >
> > Does this sound like a good way to describe and position E4?
> >
> > OK, maybe that's a silly question to ask a bunch of
engineers. ;-)
> >
> > But does anyone think I'm missing anything important or
glossing
> > over something that I shouldn't be.
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Dave Orme
> > _______________________________________________
> > e4-dev mailing list
> > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> > https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
<https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev>
>
> _______________________________________________
> e4-dev mailing list
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
<https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev>
> _______________________________________________
> e4-dev mailing list
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
<https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev>
_______________________________________________
e4-dev mailing list
[email protected]
https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
_______________________________________________
e4-dev mailing list
[email protected]
https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
_______________________________________________
e4-dev mailing list
[email protected]
https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
