Wednesday March 09, 2005

Adding value to Solaris

I found Kathy Sierra's blog because of a link on James Governor's Monk Chips blog. But I really liked what she had to say in her Creating Passionate Users Blog about how successful products make it easy for others to add value to a product. She used the example of how hard it is to compete with the iPod because of all the add ons that have been created by others. At first I thought that this concept only applied to consumer products. But then I realized that in the case of an operating system like Solaris, drivers are a similar example. By making Solaris open source Sun has made it very easy for others to add value to Solaris. Hopefully as she suggests this leads to more passionate Solaris users.

Sun wins an Optimas Award

Sun just won an Optimas award from Workforce Management Magazine. To quote their web site "The Optimas Awards recognize workforce management initiatives that create positive business results." Sun won for Global Outlook. Again, to quote "In an era when companies increasingly battle for talented employees, Sun Microsystems has a powerful and portable weapon: its innovative and highly evolved iWork program, which institutionalizes the virtual office and flextime." It makes me proud to be a part of the iWork Solutions Group at Sun