Mozilla launched new Email and Communications Organization

Mozilla is launching a new organization to develop internet mail and communications software. It will use the open source email desktop client Thunderbird, as a base. It will remain a Mozilla subsidiary with Mozilla providing the initial seed money of $3 million to establish this new company.
The new organization will be led by Dr. David Ascher, currently CTO and VP Engineering of ActiveState, who joins Mozilla to carry out this job.

I am sure people invariably will have questions about potential cross-overs with Chandler but as far as we know, there are no news about an explicit collaboration between Mozilla and OSAF over the email application.

More posts on Chandler Preview

Here's the official post from OSAF addressing the Preview release of Chandler, as written by Katie Capps Parlante, our VP of Engineering and General Manager.

Scott Rosenberg has added a follow-up post on his blog addressing the Chandler Preview release. It has an interesting comparison with the Zimbra client.
I look forward to personally congratulating Scott on the success of his book, Dreaming in Code and the subsequent release of the paperback edition, during the Chandler launch party next Thursday.

Here's Mitch's blog on the Preview release.

'Viral' marketing paid off - Yahoo acquires ZImbra

As quoted by a Zimbra insider that they are ecstatic about the acquisition as this has essential business appeal for both the parties. The Zimbra team will be relocating to Sunnyvale, where Yahoo is headquartered. The relocation and subsequent commute is a minor let down for some Zimbra people, and there is one I can commiserate with, as he happens to be my Husband.

Here's the NY Times article on the acquisition.

Starups, how not to die.

A very interesting post by Paul Graham from Y Combinator, a company that provides seed money to fledgling startups, on what factors account for success or failures in startups. I am sure a lot of us can learn from this..

Here's the link to the article.

iPhone early adopters get $100 back

In this open letter to all iPhone early adopters, Steve Jobs has generously offered a $100 credit towards any purchase in Apple Store. Definitely a good move since the price slash came just months after intial offering of the product. A large number of buyers who were caught up in the excitement of the launch were not part of the early adopter demographic. So they were indeed shocked at the price slash. But people like us who live and breathe in technology land know tech gadgets aren't something you buy as an investment for future. You know if you wait, it will get faster, cheaper, smaller (or bigger) over time and what you have will become obsolete faster than you had imagined (remember the last laptop or digital camera purchase). Folks who bought the iPhone early got something for it, they got to be the first iPhone owners. They got to be the cynosure of everyone's attention and the unmistakable cool image it carried of truly owning something everyone around wanted to lay their hands on, or at the least gaze at. All in all, Apple did the right thing being focused on keeping the customer happy, rather than the bottom line at the end of the day.

Mullahs on the Mainframe

My reading has surely taken a backseat lately but recently I read a book generously loaned by a friend titled 'Mullahs on the Mainframe'. It is a brilliant study by a young American social scientist who delves into the world of Daudi Bohras, a unique Muslim denomination in India whose religious beliefs and practices are largely compatible with modern ideology. It is a resounding example of how a community can live in peaceful co-existence while practicing orthodox religious practices and still maintaining liberal political and secular views and modernization of tradition. The book starts out with the historical background around the roots of the faith and then delves into day to day rituals of a Daudi Bohra life, religious festivals and their code of celebration, insight into domestic life, status of the religious leaders and royals and ultimately maintenance of spiritual and political hegemony. The study is a wonderful introduction of a peace-loving modernistic Islamic community that is often confused with the values of their more aggressive and violent counter-parts in the middle-east. We are used to living in our little cocoon of comfort constantly soaking in information as they are broadcast by the news channels and thereby creating a rather faulty image of certain people or groups of people, and until you read a book like this that completely dispels all your preconceived notions and broadens your mind to wonders and varieties of outside world.

Chandler Preview is here!

After months of grueling hard work, we are proud to announce Chandler Preview.

Chandler Desktop is an open source, standards-based personal information manager (PIM) built around small group collaboration and a core set of information management workflows modeled on Inbox usage patterns and David Allen's GTD methodology. You can manage and share calendars, tasks, messages, notes and other information with the Chandler Desktop application and/or with the Chandler Hub web application.

The Preview releases are public-beta quality applications ready for daily use

Download the desktop application, sign up for an account on the web, look at screenshots, watch screencasts, read about features, read about the project and more: http://chandlerproject.org/

The set of new features are:

1. New Triage workflow featuring the new Dashboard viewFaster Sharing protocol
2. Compatible with Chandler Server Web UI using a single Ticket URL mechanism
3. Support for a OSAF hosted Chandler Hub free sharing service
4. Support concurrent edit with merge and conflict management
5. Support background auto Sync
6. Improved Email capabilities with support for In and Out boxes, Reply/Forward
7. New Edit/Update workflow allows Chandler data to be shared through email without using a server
8. Support for special Chandler IMAP folders to automatize incoming email treatment and parsing
9. Improved Calendar user interface: better visual, better Drag and Drop, new Preview area
10. New Quick Entry widget allows easy entry of new data
11. Improved Search
12. Improved Security with support for encryption
13. New Export/Reload version migration tool
14. Many architectural improvements (performance, API, command line arguments, optional launch dialog, troubleshooting tools, etc...
    

If you are one of my loyal friends following my blog, I am sure you will douse your curiousity about what I have been working on the past few years and download our product and give it a shot.

Be sure to report any enquiries, questions, bugs on our users list at chandler-users @ osafoundation.org