On 05/06/07, Lynn Fredricks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Adobe "owns" all of the best selling commercial tools for producing/supporting content for the Flex platform.
And how did they get there - not by selling software but giving away an easy to install and useful piece of software? By open sourcing Flex, they still maintain dominance because so many people
will use their tools to generate Flex related stuff. Yet they also appeal to open source/free software communities and can leverage any work generated there as a result - that looks good to shareholders, too.
Yes- you could add that they are probably seriously worried by the long term implications of AJAX style open standards for a pure closed source business model. Something that works for one company (or even a group of companies) doesn't
necessarily mean the strategy is sound for everyone else - those strategies are built with the structure of those companies in mind. I have had clients and partners of clients that have emulated Apple or Microsoft for example - and at best its helped not at all, at other times disasterous.
Nice hand waiving - I guess there is an NDA lurking there somewhere - but seriously it would be more interesting to here some arguments :) There is no reason I can see why Rev does not slowly migrate to an open source business strategy. That migration is dangerous no doubt - but so is doing nothing. I would argue that Adobe have got that, and the reasons why they and their shareholders support this strategy apply to the majority of tool development companies in the age of Web2.0. Exactly how these companies respond will vary yes - but respond they will need to. I would add that it is a pity that RunRev did not get this early - as they have lost a serious earry mover advantage over competitors. _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
