Marketing More Clearly What's The Point?

Violin virtuoso Jean-Luc Ponty made a rare live appearance at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on his latest tour. 67 years old and still touring, he played a mix of older jazz-rock 80's fusion and more recent material from his latest band including William Lecomte (keyboards), Baron Browne (bass) and Damien Schmitt (drums). It's a long way from the Frank Zappa and Mahavishnu Orchestra days, but he still sounds great, discounting a few timing problems they'll work out as they tour. It seems strange now to think violin was not considered a serious jazz instrument when he started out.

The Java Store now provides developers access to millions of paying consumers. At PayPal X Innovate 2009, we announced an alliance with PayPal to support application payment in the Java Store Beta. The Java Store offers nearly unequaled distribution for reaching more than 800 million desktop Java users worldwide. Developers are encouraged to see the Java Store Beta in action and visit the Java Warehouse to submit applications.

Developers can price their offering anywhere from $1.99 to $200.00 (USD) and select the license rights they wish to apply to their application. Developers will receive 70 percent of any for-fee application sold through the Java Store Beta. Utilizing the new Adaptive Payment API from PayPal, consumers can authorize the Java Store Beta to bill against their PayPal account so they can simply click the "Buy" button and never have to leave the store. In addition, when a customer makes a payment in the Java Store Beta, the application owner also gets paid at the time of the purchase. This way, the developer immediately receives the revenue and knows exactly how many people have purchased their application.

The latest version of the Java Store Beta also delivers an improved look and feel, simplifying navigation throughout the store and enhancing the consumer's ability to find applications of interest. The Java Store Beta continues to provide consumers with the unique ability to easily preview (or try) applications before deciding whether or not to purchase or install the application. The Java Store Beta also makes it extremely easy for consumers to acquire new applications by simply dragging them directly onto their computer.

Building an online community is not a case where you automatically get noticed and visitors flock to your site. Besides having a plan and content to engage visitors, recruitment must be an ongoing effort. The Web is full of lively communities vying for attention. The good news is the Web also provides many opportunities for community recruitment.

In our case we were very lucky to have a site which draws millions of visitors, java.com. Most are directed there to get the latest software updates for their PC's. We just intercept them and offer an opportunity to join our beta program. They click over to our invitation page for some background information and click one button to register. That registration entitles them to download our application and provide their email address for future communications.

Not to be confused with property management, community management is a relatively new term for a person using social media tools and networks to foster, engage or communicate with others involved in a given online community.  These communities exist around companies, technologies, issues and organizations. The role can be networking within such a community to foster interaction, creating a community to support a goal, or contributing as a member.  There are probably other definitions as well. Here at Sun there are community managers in technical organizations participating in code or standards development, marketing teams involved in public relations, customer support and product areas influencing the community voice.

For the past several months, we have been creating a community around the Java Store beta program. The community has grown to thousands of individuals testing or creating applications. Everything is managed digitally, from registration, download, communications and feedback. That means there's a different tool for every activity. Of course our own web properties figure prominently and software download is our business. Omniture is critical to collecting data and anyone who uses it knows how much discussion that data can create! There are other sources of data (feedback, NetPromoter, email campaigns) that collectively provide the pulse of our community. So there's the quantitative and qualitative element to consider. It can get very non-linear in a linear organization.

Then there is the direct, or rather online, feedback. Forums, feedback forms, comment cards and email has to be aggregated and monitored. We feel it's important to have a human to human type of voice, rather than a company posture. So it's the team itself who answer and correspond with the community. I also keep alerts going to catch blogs and articles being written so we can comment on them or inform the community. Responsiveness is essential, just like non-digital human interaction. Personally, there's a balance between being the champion of the community vs. influencing the community to champion us.

It probably is a bit of a dream to think you can manage an online community. There is so much connectivity, random activity and unpredictable communication, the best you can often hope for is facilitation, sometimes only observation or participation!

If you're a developer with a consumer desktop application who'd like to get in early, this screencast shows you how to get your apps in the Java Store. Bernard Traversat, Director of Java Store Engineering, shows how easy it is for developers to move through the sections of the Java Warehouse Developer Portal.  Watch Now.

Read all about it, the book is out! The Open Source Enterprise: Harnessing the Economics of Open Technology. (PDF, 80 pages, 720 KB)

Today, the vast majority of enterprises run open-source software in their IT environments. But when planning business and IT strategy, organizations that understand the opportunities afforded by open source can gain significant competitive advantages. Enterprises should carefully evaluate whether open-source or proprietary alternatives meet their long-term business needs in terms of license fee structure, support costs, flexibility, transparency of the product roadmap, and fast access to innovation.

This eBook explores the advantages and possible disadvantages of open-source software, the mission-critical areas of the enterprise IT environment where open source is increasingly being used, guidance on how to get started with open source, and the advantages of Sun's proven, open-source software solutions. Read on.

We recently published our new software "gateway," the routing page for all things software at Sun. It actually results from a significant amount of user input. In the usability testing we did comparing our old page to this new design, we found that visitors really just want to quickly get to the product of interest with the least amount of navigation in the way. Quite deflating for the marketing team. We loved our videos, product descriptions, news ticker, spotlights and featured topics. We eliminated a couple of interim pages to directly present the product links to visitors. We did retain a smaller area for new products, subjects and promotions at the top of the page. So far it has been well received.

Check out my article in The Pragmatic Marketer magazine. This issue of the journal for technology product management and marketing professionals includes "I Heard What You Said. Now What Did You Mean?" If you've had the opportunity to sit through a presentation, read a document, or watch a video produced by your company that was full of information—yet, you came away wondering what it was all about, read my article to learn what to do about it.

I see headlines that imply they make us something else, whether it's easier to reach, more productive, better connected or just better accessorized. These devices account for about a quarter of the US cell phone market and are showing a 25% growth rate at the expense of their dumber cousins. I do think there's a social component beyond status symbol. Sometimes we can find new uses for devices that combine functions, are easy to use or make us more mobile. I used to carry around a Palm, iPod and cell phone before getting an iPhone that combines them all (although the Palm is still more functional as a PDA). It's costing me more, that's for sure, with the mandatory data plan from AT&T.  But I can browse the web, take photos (crummy ones), read books, check the weather, read email, find someone, watch video, listen to music and even call somebody. That's more than I could do with those three old devices combined. And it's a very addictive gadget to play around with in an off moment.

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The Java Store is open. Consumers can join our beta program to easily and securely discover and purchase compelling Java applications and content through the Java Store. The Java Store contains personal productivity, business, social graph and entertainment software organized in a simple and intuitive user interface. The Java Store also allows users to safely install applications by easily dragging them from the Java Store directly onto their computer desktop, greatly simplifying the software installation process.

Developers can send us their Java applications for publication to the store to directly connect with the more than 800 million desktop Java technology users worldwide. The Java Warehouse is the repository for applications submitted by developers for distribution in the Java Store. The Java Warehouse is unique in that it will facilitate the aggregation, management and distribution of Java applications across all the screens of a customer's life - browser, desktop, mobile and TV. While Sun manages the desktop-focused Java Store, mobile and TV service providers can use the Java Warehouse to acquire high quality applications for their existing, private branded storefronts.

Come see what's in store!

Get the complete collection of essential open source software for the enterprise. This media kit contains the OpenSolaris operating system, GlassFish application server, MySQL database, Netbeans development environment, OpenDS directory server, OpenSSO identity service, OpenOffice.org office productivity and VirtualBox desktop virtualization software for Mac/Linux/Windows and Solaris platforms (x86 and SPARC).  Order the Sun Open Source Enterprise Software media kit to get started saving on your software costs!

To JavaOne this year? You can still win a FREE pass. By popular demand, your chance to save has been extended to June 1. Early Bird - SAVE $200.  Submit a 30 second video commercial on why you should be at JavaOne this year and why it is THE event to attend for a chance to receive a full conference pass and $1500 to offset travel expenses. Register today!

Time to save? Time to open. Sun reduces or eliminates costly proprietary licenses which both simplifies acquisition and reduces costs. New applications can be developed and tested without charge.  We foster open source projects over a broad variety of technologies to enable greater innovation than a single company can achieve.  Since open source software is based on standards, the risk from exposure to a single proprietary vendor's technologies is reduced. Once an application is ready for deployment, our global enterprise support services provide the confidence it will be continually available to meet user demand. Open solutions open possibilities. Open source is working for leading companies. It's time to be open.

Ongoing cost reduction in IT is accelerating in the new economic reality. Open source software offers significant savings over proprietary software.  IT executives are looking to reduce costs quickly with confidence.  Sun is the leading provider of open source software with unmatched experience developing communities, integrating open, standards-based software and providing global enterprise support.  We help companies reduce their costs and risks beginning with development of applications through their deployment. We make software easier to download and deploy, influence the innovation of global software development communities and deliver enterprise value added products and services worldwide. It's time for business to open up.

Last September, photographer Jimmy Chin set out with Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk to climb India's Shark's Fin, a 6,500-foot rock route that's twice as long and just as steep as anything on El Capitan. The central pillar of 20,700-foot Mount Meru is in the Garhwal Himalaya of India. The 6,500-foot route has difficulties of 7a (5.11d), M5, and 80-degree ice.  At least 16 attempts have been made on the main line up the prow. They didn't make it this time and suffered days of freezing weather in their portaledge. Their video blog has some great footage and attitude. 

Reading Anker's article in Outside got me thinking about things we wish we'd done and didn't. And realizing here's a guy who might regret things he did, but probably not things he didn't do. Also the thing about summitting, finishing, winning. They didn't get to the top, but what an incredible accomplishment to get that far, persevere through a storm, climb at night, and keep going. Yet know when to turn around and come down. After all, the top is only halfway they say.

I had one of those days when I just needed the feeling of accomplishment, but some projects just won't end. So maybe on days like this I need to take some pride in what we got done along the way. Monday I'll come back and try to finish again.

Mt. Meru is a sacred mountain considered to be the center of the universe.