> As a potential enterprise customer, this sentiment worries me greatly. In > my mind the singular killer feature of ESME is the enterprise focus. Things > that detract from that, like emphasizing OpenId for authentication rather > than more enterprisey methods like Kerberos or (**shudder**) NTLM.
You might be right, but my thoughts were as a response to the fact SAP is using laconi.ca internally, when there's nothing specifically enterprisey about it. Some time ago there was an announcement from Dennis Howlett about ESME being proposed for use in schools. I was a bit worried that if this type of institution perceived ESME as too enterprisey for their needs, they might dismiss it. > I say stick to your roots and make sure you do it well. Right now the > business case for microblogging in the enterprise is clear as mud. I think > it could be made if it was effectively blended into existing infrastructure > in a way that's likely to produce value added communication rather than the > sometimes amusing line noise produced by services like Twitter. Most of the examples I was trying to come up with deal with integrating with some kind of corporate infrastructure (specifically in IT). I'm not sure ESME has found its own identity in the corporate world, though. My point is not that we shouldn't focus on the features which are of interest to an enterprise- quite the contrary. However, I do not want us to cut our options and try to force a perceived need on our users before the product has even taken shape. Twitter has been successful exactly because it was flexible and has evolved in accordance to the needs of its users. If we receive feedback from more users like you, which point to integration in the enterprise world, then I would be happy for ESME to concentrate in this area. I'm not so keen on removing features not seen as enterprisey, e.g. OpenID and alienating users who could benefit ESME with ideas and feedback, which in the end would benefit the enterprise user as well. I could be wrong, but I'm happy there's feedback about what you want in ESME. Thank you! Vassil
