Once More unto the Breach

MeeGo: Nokia, Intel and the Future of the Mobile Internet Platform

This week Intel and Nokia announcement the merge of Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo platforms into MeeGo, a single platform for mobile computing. This is a great announcement for a number of reasons.

Nokia demonstrated it's ability to participate within active open source communities as it developed and launched the N770 tablet as a consumer device and maemo as a computing platform several years ago. (The N770 pre-dates the iPhone.) This wasn't a cut and run on the Linux kernel to grab a fork then forever be stuck supporting it. This was an excellent demonstration to themselves that they could use an active royalty free OS and continue to share the development costs. Ari Jaaksi's report on the experience is enlightening. Nokia has since acquired TrollTech, released the Qt tool kit appropriately, (and then acquired Symbian Ltd. and released its handset OS software assets into the open source wild through the Symbian Foundation).

Intel developed and released Moblin over the past few years as a Linux distro for mobile computing. They carefully positioned it NOT for handsets, but for all the other cool mobile Internet devices in your life like tablets and in-vehicle systems. They could do lots of interesting device related work on the Linux kernel for things in which the mainstream Linux wasn't interested and still get the cost advantages from shared development for the platform as a whole. In a very short time it has become one of the more interesting Linux distributions from a hardware innovation perspective.

The positioning is key here. By focusing this on "mobile Internet devices" they avoid the whole iPhone versus Android debate, Windows Mobile has no comment to make, LiMo is still wandering in the wilderness, and Symbian isn't in a position to comment. All of those are thought of as handset operating systems. This is future forward and about the mobile Internet. And don't just think iTouch and tablets in the coffee shop. Think of your home as a wifi space. Microsoft and Apple continue to demonstrate that people DON'T want another PC in the living room for media management. So what are all the other devices you can imagine in your home that are NOT "computers" that could become the synchronization hub of your world's information and media.

• What about a wifi device suctioned to my refrigerator door where the shopping lists are kept and the family calendar at a glance (with reminders),
• or a device that looks like a VoIP phone with a wireless handset in a stand that also has the family phone book(s) in it, but synchronizes with your mobile phone handsets for calendars and contacts,
• or what if my "media centre" didn't look like a media centre at all, but was a tablet that talked to a black box shoved out of site behind the couch, but would also sync my mobile phone or Kindle or Nokia N900 Internet Tablet,
• or there was a small charging pad on the kitchen counter where keys and mobile phones and personal media players are dropped to sync across family calendars, contacts, and the latest episode of a show I'll watch or listen to on tomorrow's commute (while inductively charging my phone).
• What if all these devices could communicate with one another?

All of these imaginings will need an operating system. Microsoft may have made computing in the home ubiquitous in a PC-centric world, but no consumer OEM or ODM today will want to repeat history and watch all high margin profits go to a single software company via royalties. Maintaining individual forks of Linux isn't cost effective either. But sharing the value creation of a robust complete applications platform in an open source project free to all would certainly answer the call.

IT Customer Buying Patterns and Vendor Competition

Tail light chasing your competition means you will NEVER own a concept in your customers's minds. Matt Asay recently blogged about Novell's continuing practice of chasing Red Hat in the Linux market rather than defining itself on its own strengths, (in this case offering support for Red Hat servers cheaper than Red Hat). He rightly addresses the woolliness of their thinking and closes by saying:

Instead, Novell should be focusing on the things it does really well, like its powerful SUSE Studio technology, which makes it super easy to build Linux-based appliances. Novell is never going to be a better Red Hat than Red Hat. It should focus on being a better Novell. That positive message is what CIOs buy.

The post also includes a fragment of a leaked memo from a Red Hat country manager crying foul against Novell in a memo to a customer. Some consider this a sign that Red Hat is beginning to misbehave in its arrogance.

Here's what I think Novell is up against: Is the customer "happy" with Red Hat is the wrong question. This applies equally to both pricing and arrogance issues. There are few inflexion points to grab. Novell's opportunities aren't around offering cheaper support, but have to be looking forward to the next ground they can grab in customers's minds.

From my historical perspective as a customer, (and this was confirmed in recent discussions with CIOs I trust), customers never "trust" vendors, and in fact expect them to misbehave to maximize their own revenue. Customer organizations manage their IT budgets as a portfolio (especially large complex organizations with lots of "platforms" to support). Switching solutions means retraining, instability in something complex that isn't "broke", and the savings would need to be enormous to consider the conversation at all. And it's not enough to save a lot on the specific vendor competitive situation because the customer is actually judging the savings against their entire portfolio.

Let me borrow an example from discussions and a blog post from three years ago. Saving even 50% per year on a Red Hat support contract by switching to Novell is irrelevant. The risk of instability isn't balanced against a commensurate savings in the overall budget (against say the IBM or Oracle annual spend), or new value-add to the company. It's not worth the conversation. Matt rightly points out that the savings of moving from Red Hat to CentOS is 100% and the form factor exactly matches Red Hat. Is the customer "happy" with Red Hat is the wrong question. They're not unhappy enough with the value-to-conversion risk to make the conversation interesting compared to all the other more interesting value generation projects they're undertaking or savings in the ugly parts of the budget.

What this means is that once established, there are few opportunities for the 2nd place guys to break-in. The market leader already owns a concept (or concepts) in the customer's mind. It's not about differentiation. It's about owning the differentiation in the customer's mind. ("We're cheaper" is already owned by CentOS.) You need to catch the next technology wave and own a particular definition faster at a time when the customer technology office is already at an inflexion point so a "new" vendor is an obvious part of the discussion. For Novell, this might mean positioning all the great technology in SuSE Studio on cloud appliances for the intranet. Today the message seems to be focused on getting more ISVs to compete with Red Hat's perceived success with ISVs. Positioning this technology to solve the ISV problem backwards is irrelevant. (Near as I can tell Red Hat and Novell each have roughly the same number of ISVs and I'm betting there's substantial overlap. Red Hat has again created the perception that they have more ISVs in a customer's mind. They were likely first to grab the ISV market, and they have entrenched the concept in customers minds.)

Nobody knows what cloud computing will mean for the large organization IT shop. Positioning SuSE Studio as the perfect way to "build virtual internal application appliances for your internal cloud", with all the supporting materials, examples, tutorials and the like is a possible way to own "in-house application appliances" in the customer's mind before Red Hat or IBM or some clever start-up comes along and does so. Then Novell can talk about the value proposition of SuSE as a secondary complementary [larger] revenue stream. Following Red Hat means you'll always be second.

Microsoft and the Release of Linux Drivers Under the GPL

Microsoft announced that it is releasing a collection of software drivers under the GPLv2 to better enable Linux to run as a first class citizen on their Hyper-V technology. Matt Aslett and Stephen O'Grady provide excellent commentary [as always] and I won't rehash their discussion here.

This is a significant move by Microsoft.

It isn't the first time Microsoft contributed code under the GPL. In the early part of the decade (~2000) the Interix team contributed a reasonable amount of code to the gcc compiler suite that was accepted. We assigned rights of ownership to a Microsoft asset to the FSF as needed. We published the sources as the license required. But that was a different time and a different climate and the last thing Microsoft wanted to do was admit they were contributing to a free software project outside their walls, or that they were shipping software covered by the GPL in a Microsoft product.

Neither is it the first time they've shared their own code. Rob Mensching has been running the Wix project since 2003. That's a project started on SourceForge using a non-Microsoft license (the IBM Common Public License) using a software tool base that is still in significant use inside Microsoft for delivering products.

But then things appeared to shut down from a code perspective. Much of the past five or six years has been Microsoft contributing anything but code. Money to Apache or Eclipse, providing a site where others can contribute code, ensuring third parties make arm's length contributions rather than Microsoft staff, and esoteric contributions such as requesting approval for licenses from the OSI. Their messaging remains guarded. The "position paper" released in March co-incident with the Open Source Business Conference had the same move-to-the-middle ambiguous messages and excuses that began in ~2002 with the Shared Source Initiative. [Misquoting a study to try to demonstrate open source software is still rough and only developer friendly doesn't win them points either.]

The current Linux contribution is significant. It's a significant quantity of code. It's an attempt at direct participation in a major mainstream open source software project to meet business objectives. It should be encouraged. It's an opportunity for the Linux community to embrace-and-extend Microsoft.

As Stephen O'Grady observes at the end of his commentary:

"Microsoft is, this week’s contribution notwithstanding, still holding open source at arms length, in contrast to an IBM who embraces it strategically in certain areas in service of a larger strategy.

But while it is not a conversion, it is important news, a welcome development, and a job well done for those involved. "

OSBC Keynote Competition between Sun, Microsoft, and IBM — IBM Won

I continue to stand in awe of IBM's ability to market. Here's how the line-up of executive keynotes went down this morning at OSBC.

First up was Jonathon Schwarz, Sun CEO. Jonathon always gives good presentations, although he seemed a little brittle this morning. His messages this morning:

• It's all about the cloud.
• We are it.
• It's still about business.
• [Please] buy our hardware.

Microsoft stepped in with Robert Youngjohns, President of Microsoft North America. An excellent soft speaker that quickly established his historical geek credentials and breadth of technology interests beyond Microsoft tech. He apparently even worked at both Sun and IBM. His messages this morning:

• It's all about interoperability.
• We get it [finally].
• It's still about business.
• [Please] buy our software.

Robert Sutor, IBM VP of Open Source and Linux, then finished with a virtuoso performance. It was about collective action. His messages this morning:

• It's all about open source and open standards.
• Linux is an amazing mature flexible solution for the world's information processing problems. "It's not a hammer, but a collection of fine tools." Our involvement in the Linux community is ten years old.
• It's NOT about business. It's about solving hard problems. [A nice paraphrase of Drucker's the purpose of a company is not to make money.]
• We [collectively] have the tools to solve these problems. We [IBM] can help you.

I think the only time he actually mentioned IBM was when he said in passing that they had broken the petaflop barrier last year. It was masterful. It was designed to remind you that IBM has depth of technology experience, and the tools (people, hardware, software, knowledge) to help you with your information management problems. It was a conversation starter between the company and customers. It wasn't about selling technology but rather tailoring solutions — just tell us what you need.

It doesn't matter what you think about each company. Good executive keynotes are performance art delivering a marketing message. (Bad executive keynotes are product announcements to audiences that paid good money to learn something other than the latest thing they're going to be forced to buy.) While all three presenters today are consummate performers, one message was about solving problems, the other two about selling stuff.

Long after Sun's been cut up for parts the way DEC was, and long after Msft stops trading, IBM will still be humming along as a technology solutions company with a mixed-margin portfolio offering, terrifying as that might seem for some. Well done, Bob.

The Microsoft versus TomTom Patent Debate is about the Mobile Internet not Linux

The Linux community is up in arms over Microsoft's filing a patent infringement suit against TomTom, the Dutch navigational unit manufacturer, determined to convey this as an opening move in the debate about what patents Linux does or doesn't infringe. This suit is very likely NOT about Linux. Let's look at the patents. From the complaint, Microsoft patents in the case (collectively, “the Microsoft patents-in-suit”):

• 6,175,789 (16 January, 2001) Vehicle computer system with open platform architecture
• 7,054,745 (30 May, 2006) Method and system for generating driving directions
• 6,704,032 (9 March, 2004) Methods and arrangements for interacting with controllable objects within a graphical user interface environment using various input mechanisms
• 7,117,286 (3 October, 2006) Portable computing device-integrated appliance
• 6,202,008 (13 March, 2001) Vehicle computer system with wireless internet connectivity
• 5,579,517 (26 November, 1996) Common name space for long and short filenames
• 5,758,352 (26 May, 1998) Common name space for long and short filenames
• 6,256,642 (3 July, 2001) Method and system for file system management using a flash-erasable, programmable, read-only memory

Also from the complaint, we have this statement (line 15):

6. Upon information and belief, Defendants are in the business of developing, manufacturing, and selling portable navigation computing devices and software for use on those devices, personal computers, PDAs, and smartphones (hereinafter known collectively as “Portable Navigation Devices and Software”).

This feels much more like positioning for location-based services and the coming mobile Internet war. Microsoft has been the "PC company" for a long time. It got there on the backs of a standardized PC "device". (In a Christensen economic world of a network of complements, Microsoft captured the innovation premium in the OS on commodity hardware.) That world is changing rapidly since Apple demonstrated what the mobile Internet can look like with the release of the iPhone. There has been a rush of delivering iPhone competitors to market since then. Nokia bought Navteq, then Symbian (the predominant mobile OS), to be released royalty free and as open source sometime in the future. Google released Google Maps with instructions to drive places, and then developed and released Android. There are considerably more handset devices on the planet than PCs [see note below]. This feels like a much bigger fight than the first shots in a Linux patent fight. This could have much bigger ramifications for Nokia (and the other handset manufacturers), Google, and Apple than Red Hat et al. These are the players that need to be naming themselves to this patent litigation suit.

Related commentary:

• Microsoft v. TomTom: Patent war, or no?, () Matt Asay's fine blog commentary
• Microsoft sues TomTom for alleged patent infringement, (25 February, 2009) by Ina Fried
• Has Microsoft's Patent War Against Linux Begun?, (25 February, 2009) Glyn Moody's commentary
• Beating the TomTom: Drums of War? (Not), (26 February, 2008) Andy Updegrove's excellent commentary
• Microsoft lawyer 'won't speculate' on Linux suits, (25 February, 2008) Ina Fried's CNET interview with Microsoft's Horatio Gutierrez, senior IP lawyer
• The Microsoft Press Release, (25 February, 2009)

Note: Communities Dominate Brands pointed out that there were 3.3 Billion mobile subscriptions in 2007 versus 900 Million PCs. Or to put this in better context:

Now as the phone handset makers like Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, SonyEricsson and LG ship over a billion phones annually (IDC, Jan 2007), we have a colossus of an industry of high tech pushing ever more powerful gadgets into our pockets. And yes, Nokia alone ships one million phones every day of the year, Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays included. For contrast note that the PC industry shipped 250 million new PCs in 2007, of which about 100 million are laptops (Computer Industry Almanac Jul 2007).

Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu in the New York Times

There is a good overview article on Mark, Ubuntu, and Canonical in the business section of yesterday's New York Times. For those that don't know about Mark and the Ubuntu team it provides some context and history about Mark, Thawte, the creation of Ubuntu Linux and the Canonical business model. There are good quotes from the usual suspects in our community (Chris Di Bona, Ian Murdoch, Matt Asay). I need to disagree with Matt. (I know — that's normal between he and I.) I don't think Mark is going to have a crisis of faith in the business anytime soon. He has always had big visions. In Mark's own words, "It was very clear that I was in a unique situation where I should choose to do things that were not possible otherwise." I think Mark [thankfully] thinks deeply and differently from most people.

Photo by Hazel Thompson for the New York Times

OSBR Article on Open Source and the Mobile Internet

The Open Source Business Resource is an academically sponsored body of work published each month out of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. I've an article in this month's issue. Regular readers will recognize a lot of themes they've read here or heard me discuss and present. The focus is on the coming mobile Internet and open source software. I would encourage people that want to comment to hold the discussion on the article's website.

The Arrival of the Mobile Internet Thanks to the Economics of Open Source Software
Walli, S. 2009 Jan 5. The Arrival of the Mobile Internet Thanks to the Economics of Open Source Software. Open Source Business Resource [Online] 0:0. Available: http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr/article/view/818/790

Linux Deep in the Heart of Sicily

Copyright © 2008 by Tony Schofield, All rights reserved.

A friend sent me this picture this morning. He and his wife retired to Rome for a year and they're enjoying their time travelling around Italy and its environs. In his words:

"I took the photo in this little village in the middle of Sicily, a village in which the height of technical sophistication was most likely the telephone and where farmers use their tractors and tiny powered garden carts as their method of transportation to drive to the village."

I think we can add this one to the ubiquity tally.

FTC Settlement on Patent Abuse and Standards (and Open Source Implications)

Andy updegrove posted great news this morning on his standards blog. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced its resolution that a patent licensing promise made by a patent holder in a standards setting process is binding on a future holder of the patent.

National Semiconductor participated in an IEEE standards effort to develop the 100 Mbps "Fast Ethernet" specification in 1994. Two key (pending) patents were under their control, and they licensed them clearly, cleanly, and cheaply for US$1000 flat one-time fee to all takers. The patents changed hands, first to a group (2002) that wanted to change the licensing deal, then to N-Data (2003), a patent troll that was aggressively pursuing a changed expensive license.

Andy sums it up best:

"[T]he reliance upon promises made with respect to patents is of concern not only in the standard setting context, but with respect to open source software as well. The details of the settlement will provide significant guidance as to how the regulators would view similar conduct in an open source setting. Moreover, in the case of N-Data, the FTC has acted aggressively while acknowledging that the actions at issue might not rise to the level of violating relevant antitrust laws. In doing so, the Commissioners provide strong assurance to participants in standard setting that the FTC recognizes the importance of standards in the modern world. Finally, the details of the actual settlement demonstrate a willingness on the part of the FTC to craft a detailed and savvy set of requirements that addresses the realities of actual licensor-licensee conduct in the marketplace."

This is great news in the context of patent promises made to open source developers from the likes of IBM and Sun Microsystems, and through mechanisms like the Open Invention Network and the Linux Foundation's Patent Commons Project. It removes FUD slung around with respect to patents and intellectual property in both the standards arena and open source project communities. Each is a collaborative effort with significant economic importance and impact. Each will hopefully see the intellectual property landscape a little more clearly now.

Full details on Andy's blog.

Acacia Patents, Red Hat, and Novell

Groklaw reports a patent infringement suit has been launched against Red Hat and Novell over Linux.

Take a deep breath. Be calm.

When the SCO Group suit was first launched, I was still at Microsoft. A number of people in the strategy team where I worked were excited because "finally the free and open source world was going to understand the importance of intellectual property." (These Microsoft employees didn't appreciate exactly how careful the community is about IP.)

I pointed out the following logic back then: IBM was investing a billion dollars in Linux. IBM could therefore allow a certain amount of legal debate to occur to determine how real a case SCO Group may or may not have had. A few millions in legal fees pales in comparison. In an absolutely worst case scenario, IBM could acquire SCO Group for O(US$150M) or less after a couple of years of legal punishment and the problem would go away. Again, a few millions in legal fees would be a cheap exploration. The SCO Group suit was NEVER a threat to Linux growth and deployment. Did the FUD slow the adoption curve, no doubt. But did it make any material difference in the use and growth of Linux? Hardly. And it's over now.

Microsoft should itself understand this business calculus around IP. They offered a lot of money to settle the Eolas suit. Eolas got greedy and refused the settlement. They "won" a half billion dollars in court. Now, when you're about to pay out a half a billion dollars, you can afford to spend a few millions more contesting the decision. Indeed, with that sort of money at stake you can afford to hire the cream of the graduating classes of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford Law to spend some time getting creative.

The U.S. Supreme Court continues to involve itself in the broken patent system. The Linux Foundation and the Open Invention Network are both geared for this particular fight. I have confidence that the Groklaw community will step into the breach of reporting and investigation again. IBM, Intel, and HP have a vested interest in the outcome, and nobody plays IP games the way IBM does. Over the next few weeks, lawyers will come together behind the scenes from all the interested parties on the defending side. Hopefully egos won't be too large, and a coherent plan of negotiation will emerge.

Some of the more interesting questions for me will be:

• Why Red Hat AND Novell?
• Why not Microsoft? (Acacia went after Apple who settled. Microsoft would seem to have deeper pockets than Red Hat or Novell. It would seem to be the more interesting business discussion.)
• If Microsoft is not involved, should they be? If Apple settled, and then this suit settles, Microsoft should know they're next on the list. Or are they trusting IBM et al to win this one for them?

To quote one of my favourite lawyers in this space:

“If the F/OSS community wants to be in commercial space, community members will have to learn to deal calmly with IP litigation. The F/OSS production model will work where it makes sense, and it will not work where it doesn’t. It’s really just that simple. Particular claims in individual suits—even one against a flagship program such as the GNU/Linux OS—will not determine the fate of the community. Such cases present factual issues that will get resolved one way or another; they do not represent a crisis for F/OSS production as a whole. Norm entrepreneurial rhetoric that plays off such cases should be treated as entertainment. Enjoy it if you like it, take inspiration from it if you must, but don’t confuse it with the way things actually get done.”

I'm sure some former colleagues at Microsoft are excited. Mr. Smith and Mr. Ballmer most assuredly. But just as with the SCO Group litigation, there is no reason to celebrate. They shouldn't confuse this with "the way things actually get done." Pax.