Mittwoch Juni 01, 2005

Mozilla Firefox is a Winner
"PC World, the most widely-read computer or business magazine, today announced the winners of its annual World Class Awards. The "100 Best Products of 2005" in the July issue features the finest products and services of the last year, from advanced digital cameras to workgroup printers, from ACDSee 7 to ZoneAlarm Antivirus. [...]

2005 WORLD CLASS AWARD WINNERS
COMPANY CATEGORY/PRODUCT
Mozilla WEB BROWSER: Mozilla Firefox"

The full article can be found here.
( Jun 01 2005, 11:30:47 PM CEST ) Permalink

OpenOffice.org at Dutch Agency
"Last weekend at Annahoeve in Achtmaal the Dutch Refugee Council of Midden Gelderland announced that they succesfully completed a pilot where they migrated 100 machines and 200 users using NX technology and the KDE desktop. [...] Some of the applications used are OpenOffice.org, Kontact and Kiosktool."
The full article can be found here.
( Jun 01 2005, 11:21:09 PM CEST ) Permalink

"Sweden bans smoking from bars"
Great news coming out of Sweden for me as a non-smoker. Italy did the same earlier this year.

Don't get me wrong! I personally don't have a problem with other people smoking! I have friends, colleagues and family members who smoke. However, I really hate that you can't have a nice dinner or just a beer here in Germany without having to smell "like a cigarette" afterwards. In addition, I don't like people throwing their cigarette stubs everywhere. Cigarette stubs really are garbage!

Since I'm back in Germany from my two years in California, I almost don't go to restaurants and bars anymore. My wife and I just hate smelling from the smoke. Typically, the smoke also makes you much faster tired. At least that is my experience from my brother's wedding.
( Jun 01 2005, 05:55:12 PM CEST ) Permalink

"Mozilla unveils next-gen Firefox to developers"
"The latest version features enhancements including a "sanitise" button that automatically clears out browsing history, cookies, cache, form information, and other personal data.

Faster navigation backwards and forwards between pages has also been built in, as has the ability to view thumbnail images in a separate tab bar."

The full article can be found here.
( Jun 01 2005, 02:11:43 PM CEST ) Permalink

Google's "Summer of Code"
"The Summer of Code is Google's program designed to introduce students to the world of Open Source Software Development.

This Summer, don't let your programming skills lie fallow...Use them for the greater good of Open Source Software and computer science! Google will provide a $4500 award to each student who successfully completes an open source project by the end of the Summer. (payment details can be found in FAQ)"
More information can be found on Google's website.
( Jun 01 2005, 12:57:49 PM CEST ) Permalink

Conjoint Analysis & Test Marketing
Marketing research is currently the new focus area of my personal professional develoment efforts. Therefore, I'm reading quite a bit about different marketing research tools, and I'm talking to brand and product managers at different FMCG companies. Here are a few HBR's that I found quite interesting, at least for a start:

● Conjoint Analysis: A Manager's Guide
● Analyzing Consumer Preferences
● Analyzing Consumer Perceptions
● When, Where, and How to Test Market
● Test Marketing in New Product Development

I found the HBR's about conjoint analysis more useful than the ones about test marketing, but others might have different opinions. Soon I will also share my experiences about some books about marketing research and statistics as well as about the course material provided by the German distant learning university "FernUniversität Hagen" and the Edinburgh Business School.

What useful resources do you know about marketing research?
( Jun 01 2005, 12:15:12 PM CEST ) Permalink

"IT giants accused of exploiting open source"
I just found this article:

"Jesús Villasante, the head of software technologies at the EC's Information Society and Media Directorate General, said that big companies such as IBM, HP and Sun are just using the open source community as subcontractors rather than encouraging the community to develop independent commercial products. [...]

Baty did not respond directly to Villasante's comments, but said that companies such as his have a responsibility to contribute to the open source community. Sun contributes to a number of open source projects, including the open source productivity application OpenOffice.org."

Since I'm working on OpenOffice.org, live and work in Europe (Hamburg, German), but am paid by Sun Microsystems (not by any government!), I thought I should comment on the article.

Sun is contributing code, money and people to many open source projects like OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris, GNOME, Mozilla, etc. In case of "my" project OpenOffice.org, Sun is still the main contributor. Most developers are still paid by Sun.

Many government authorities are now deploying open source technology including OpenOffice.org, which is great. However, if any of these governments accuse companies like Sun to exploit the open source communities, I have to ask them how many code, money or people they have contributed to the various projects. Why are not more government employees writing code for open source projects? Why are not more government representatives joining committees like the OASIS OpenDocument TC? Why are governments buying open source solutions from vendors who are not paying the salary of any open source developer? Why are goverments not sponsoring more development projects?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not accusing the use of open source by governments! I'm also not questioning the need for more volunteer participation in "company-founded" or "company-led" open source projects. However, people who accuse companies like my employer for exploiting open source communities should at least make sure that they themselves are acting as "role models".

Large IT vendors as well as goverments should equally contribute to open source projects. Thus, it should be a "give and take" for all parties.
( Jun 01 2005, 11:47:20 AM CEST ) Permalink

Impressed by OpenOffice.org
"I have been using the word processing software for about a week and so far, I am impressed."
The full article can be found here.
( Jun 01 2005, 11:24:53 AM CEST ) Permalink