I just came across a recent press release for a Dallas-based company, NetMass. The press release talks about their latest product, ServerSafe 8. A data backup solution. Here is the announcement:

http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=76666

I spoke very briefly with Michael Reagan, their Director of Marketing, about their support of GroupWise. He said that GroupWise has been supported for quite some time and that they have GroupWise customers who have been using it.

I hoping to get more information from the company to see how GroupWise administrators could use it, since GroupWise does have some unique backup issues.

They also support Microsoft Exchange and Notes. It is nice to see that vendors are including GroupWise in their announcements and actually telling the world that they support the platform.

I will post more information when I get more details.

Years ago Novell established the precedent that add-ons and additional functionality with Novell GroupWise would be free. The clamor for out-of-the-box solutions that come free has been heard at every BrainShare for a decade.

The problem with free is that it hurts the enduser, the very person who screams for free products or product integration is the one who ends up hurt in the end.

Free is bad.

Today Nokia announced the discontinuance of the Intellisync division. The solution that Novell had decided on for their GroupWise Mobile Server.

Nokia Announcement

You are building your business, your organization, your reputation, on the solutions that you, as an IT Manager or consultant, recommend. Do you really want to stake your reputation and relationship with your customer, your boss, or your end-users on a piece of "free" software?

Now, I don' have the room or time to argue the whole Open-Source issue about free vs proprietary. That is not what this conversation is about. I'm here to argue that if you want some thing of high value then you will have to pay for it.

Novell customers have demanded that they get device syncronization for "free". Well, Novell obligded and provide the opportunity to have a syncronization experience out of the box.

They got a free solution but now they are faced with a non-solution because Nokia couldn't find any way of making money with the Intellisync product.

If you want something bad enough, then pay for it. Nokia pulled the plug on Intellisync today which has placed all of Novell's GroupWise Mobile Server users in a tight spot. Their free server doesn't seem to have a future.

I've never been a fan of Novell offering everything for free even though it supposibly causes them to lose business.

An ActiveSync process will make more sense for Novell in the future.

Why do smart people do dumb things? Especially when it comes to marketing. Haven't you seen a company that goes along doing really smart stuff suddenly seem like they got a major case of the stupids?

What causes individual people to not do the right thing when the time comes?

Fear holds us back. Fear prevents us from stepping out and doing the right thing.

When Bill Gates famously turned his company around and moved it full steam into the Internet age, he was able to do this because he didn't care and wasn't afraid of what other people would say. Those people included his staff, his employees, his partners, his stockholders, and most importantly, his customers.

He did the right thing and didn't let fear hold him back.

Novell found itself paralyzed with fear for years. The people there had grown fat and happy with the way things were. NetWare was generating nearly $1 Billion in annual revenue and things looked sweet.

Except the bottom of the boat had been ripped out and the ship was sinking. But no one seemed willing to stand up and do something. Fear paralyzed the company. Those making the decisions would say that it wasn't fear, that they were trying to save it. Yes, they may have been attempting to save it, but they were afraid to stand up and say "NetWare is Dead" and then work from that premise. Instead they kept rearranging the chairs on the deck while the ship sank.

I remember when Chris Stone stood up at BrainShare and said that maybe the future of Novell wasn't NetWare. What a commotion it created. Everyone was in a panic. Even when it was plainly stated, those inside the company continued to tell themselves that Chris wasn't serious. He was just talking. No, he was serious, and wasn't afraid to say it.

When Ron Hovsepian made the decision to embrace a partnership with Microsoft, he made a lot of enemies. But he wasn't afraid to make a very hard choice that was good for his company and good for his customers. He still has the enemies but he also has success which makes dealing with your enemies a little easier.

Good people and good companies make bad decisions when they are afraid to rock the boat. When internal Chicken Littles actual prevent action because they are crying about the sky falling in. Seldom does the sky actually fall when strong bold decisions are made. It is the lack of a decision, the inability to get past those that wring their hands and prophesy doom, that leads to disaster.

If you want to be successful, have the courage to make the tough decisions. You will make enemies but success makes it a little easier to deal with them.

Novell GroupWise just had its 20 year anniversary. I have worked with and supported the product for nearly all of those 20 years.

Back in the early days, when the Internet was beginning to emerge, GroupWise sold its SMTP Gateway for $2,500 extra. You could run GroupWise normally but to connect to the Internet you had to pay for the SMTP Gateway seperately.

That didn't go over well with the user base and the decision was made to bundle the gateway with the product.

Since then, the sense of entitlement and the expectation that everything should be included for free has been the dominant philosophy.

A philosophy that has nearly killed the product.

GroupWise has document management built in for free. Only a fraction of the install base uses it but everyone has to pay for it. And because only a fraction use it, it is hard for Novell, during tough economic times, to justify putting resources into something that doesn't generate a hard return on the investment.

Oh, sure, some will argue that Novell should have invested more into Document Management and then people would have bought the product. That is what I mean by a hard return. It is nearly impossible for Novell to know who is buying the product for which features.

Free is still bad

Today we are seeing ain increasing pressure from the Novell install base to keep putting more things into the product for free.

GMS, the Novell GroupWise Mobile Server, has been added. But it doesn't support the iPhone because Nokia, which bought Intellisync, doesn't want to have their product support a competing mobile device.

Don't argue with me that Novell should have bought the technology rather than partner for it. We would be right back where we are with Document Management. Increasing costs without any hard returns.

I wish everything was free as well. Then I wouldn't have to pay my mortgage, but things aren't free, there is ALWAYS a cost.

The sooner the GroupWise market can focus on how much GroupWise is saving because things are not free but stronger GroupWise will be as a viable low cost alternative to the monolithic Exchange approach which is draining IT budgets with bloated features that are free but unwanted.

First, I was wrong. A few blog posts ago I mentioned that I thought John McCain's campaign was slow to come up with a word to own, slow to find a central theme, and that their new theme, Original Maverick, while good, may have been too late.

I was wrong. McCain completely made up for lost time.

To own a word and keep owning it you have to tell a story that reinforces the word. Stories fill in the blanks and voids that surround a word.

With the word, Maverick, McCain was going to have to show that his actions matched his story. And with his selection of Sarah Palin, he totally reinforced the word and position. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with McCain's decision. What you have to agree with is that his decision reinforced his position. It continued the story of maverick.

Depositioning - Changing the meaning of someone else's word

Remember Hillary's strategy? It was to own the word "Experience". She did a good job, but then along came Obama and he used the word Change to deposition the word "Experience" to mean something different than what Hillary was attempting to say it meant. Obama made Experience come to mean "Same Old Thing".

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the election. Obama lost the strength of his story.
When it came time for him to make his first executive decision and demonstrate what his version of "Change" meant, he chose Joe Biden, a long time Washington player and co-Senator. His choice was probably a smart move for the strength of his ticket, but it was a bad decision to reinforce his campaign and ownership word. His actions didn't match his word. Biden did not reinforce the word "Change"

Now McCain has done to the word "Change" what Obama did to the word "Experience". McCain, rather than attempting to steal the word Change which is still easily owned by Obama, picked the word Reform to augment his Maverick word, and now McCain's Reform story is getting better traction than Obama's Change.

Changing a word

I have been seeing the signs at the Obama events. They used to be the word "Change" without explanation. Now they are "Road to Change" or "Ready to Change". McCain has successfully redefined Obama's meaning of the word Change and now the Obama camp is attempting to explain what the word means, when before they didn't need to explain it at all.

Whoever can tell the better story is going to win this. Obama has a smart campaign team, they should be able to get back on story. McCain has a tendency to not understand how to stay on message, which means he could still squander this momentum.

It is all coming down to owning a word and telling a story

Since 1986 I have been in the business of reading people's email.

I personally don't sit at a computer and read it, but I have built businesses and solutions around the concept of reading email for corporations. The reason has been to keep the bad stuff from getting in and to keep the good stuff from getting out.

But this latest issue with Sarah Palin's yahoo email account being hijacked and then published is something that completely crosses the line.

This is not free information for public consumption. This is left of someone's personal property, even if it is digital property. And that property is being used for financial gain.

That is like someone breaking into your house and stealing something that they then sell on ebay and everyone knows it was stolen.

I am not so naive to believe that the email information can be retracted. Once on the Internet always on the Internet.

Which brings up a funny incident the other day. I heard about an attorney who has a client in the email security business. He didn't quite know how the whole Google thing works, wanted someone to call Google and have them get rid of some content that was showing up in the search engines. He thought you can just call Google and they will take it off their 'website'. DOH! Welcome to the Internet age.

I created a saying for GWAVA's archiving product, Retain.

"Life is short, Email is forever."

The one lesson we learn from this is to never put something in email that you wouldn't want the entire world to know about. You might not care today but who knows what will happen in the future.

For a year and a half, the Novell GroupWise revenue stream has gone one direction...up! For the past six quarters, GroupWise has continued to defy expectations and has steadily increased their revenue.

There are a lot of pieces to the success, and it is amazing since Bonsai, the next generation of GroupWise has been delayed.

Novell is also growing. It's Linux business jumped 30%. Now, you find people suddenly saying nice things about Novell and its future. Over at the VarGuy, he isn't even shy about admitting that he hasn't been a Novell fan in the past but might be changing his tune.

With Novell's success, the question is asked. Does GroupWise have a future at Novell?

The future of collaboration is no longer focused on Microsoft. Collaboration innovation of the future is being deployed to Linux. Novell has a strong presence in the enterprise space, and especially with those companies looking to drastically reduce their costs and realize the gains from deploying Linux. The market leader in collaboration is all about vendor lock-in and spiraling costs of deployment and maintenance.

Companies are looking for Linux to help drive down costs and then they are looking for applications to run on Linux to continue to drive down costs. Collaboration, namely the email application is the primary target for major cost savings.

If Novell can focus GroupWise on this emerging opportunity then GroupWise has a chance to relaunch itself as the collaboration product of the new linux platform.

The answer is Yes, GroupWise has a strong future with Novell. GroupWise is good for Novell and Novell is good for GroupWise. The future looks brighter for the both of them.

This blog isn't about politics. I don't discuss which party or candidate will do a better job. I do discuss marketing and the successful application of its principals in business and politics.

This past week McCain has begun to use a new theme in his campaign.

The theme is Washington is Broken. If you are a McCain supporter this is good news. Finally a message that got McCain here in the first place. The Washington is broken theme will work well with his 'Original Maverick' brand that he is attempting to create.

One year ago the Mitt Romney campaign asked for volunteers to create a political ad. I participated. Alas, my ad wasn't chosen. They went with a wrap the flag around you feel good ad. Something that I felt was not what Americans wanted to hear.

Things are broken, our country has some issues to straighten out, and we are going to need someone to lead in a very tough time. The Washington is Broken theme will help McCain get the attention of a lot of people.

BTW, here is the ad I created a year ago. It is what I felt the marketing message should have been back then and I believe it is still the message. Washington is Broken

It isn't perfect but it is a vast improvement for the McCain campaign. Their new message, "Original Maverick" is starting to hit the right tone and message.

This, after a disastrous attempt by the McCain campaign to convince the American public that Obama is extremely popular and that is a bad thing. Running ads with Obama's face all over the screen, with massive crowds chanting, "Obama, Obama" and then attempting to slip in a little dig that McCain is better because he is not popular.

One viewer of the Olympics mentioned to me that as they used Tivo to scim the ads, they thought they just kept seeming Obama ads, not evening getting to see McCain in his own ad.

Owning a word

In marketing, to capture the attention of your intended audience you must own a word in the minds of those people who you wish to hear and remember your message.

Obama owns the word Change. All the candidates have attempted to take this word away from Obama, either by using it themselves or by dismissing it as unimportant. They have all failed. Obama owns this word outright.

McCain, up until this point has owned the word Old. He hasn't wanted to own the word, but that isn't the way it works. He has continued to reinforce his ownership of this word and the examples are too extensive to mention here.

A new word for McCain

But now the McCain campaign has hit upon a new word combination. Original Maverick. The word Original has a similar meaning to the world old. Afterall, the Coke brand is old but it successfully uses Original or Real as a replacement for old.

McCain, by claiming to be the original, can use his experience and age as an advantage. Maverick can be a good word as well. It speaks of someone who leads with strength of inner conviction and not swayed by peer pressure. There are dangers in this word as well. A maverick is also seen as a contrarian. Somewho who isn't a team player, someone who doesn't work well with others.

Telling a story

In order for The Original Maverick to work for McCain, he has to step up and tell us a story that convinces us that he deserves to own this word. I have heard so many times McCain state that the American public knows him and knows his position. Sorry Mr McCain, but most Americans pay very little attention to most senators and their perceived accomplishments while sitting around with the other 99 senators. Americans don't know you and that is part of the problem.

So tell us a story. Tell us how you are a maverick. We understand the 'original' part, we want to know about the maverick part. Other than the Iraq war, which Americans do know your views, where else have you stepped up, stood out, and been right. Where have you bucked the conventional wisdom, gone out a limb, and then been proven right.

You are a republican, so being opposed to their ideas won't give you street cred as a maverick. We want to know where you were when controversial republican items were being passed and we especially want to know why you failed to prevent them from passing if you are such a maverick and a great leader. There is a great chance for McCain to show how he has failed to influence and sway his fellow legislators.

Too little, too late

I'm still predicting that the republicans took too long to figure this out. And their delay has provided Obama with a lead that isn't showing up in the polls yet. Once the Olympics are over and people turn in earnest to politics, the runway is just to short for the big heavy McCain campaign plane to finally get off the ground.

I've been watching the Olympics. It has been amazing sports competition. I've also been watching the Olympic ads. Some have been great, some have been average and one has been downright STUPID.

The Good

Visa - This has been one of my favorites. Morgan Freeman narrates about Michael Phelps not being a dolphin.

Visa has done such a good job with the Olympics. I got my first Visa card for one reason, to be able to get tickets to the Winter Olympics. They are the leader and they know it and you don't doubt it.

Budweiser - One of their first ads was a rerun of their Superbowl ad, the horse that doesn't make the team and then works out for a year to get on the team. Great ad, great message.

Budweiser is struggling with an image issue at the moment due to their sale to a Belgian beer maker, so this was a good angle, reinforcing their role as a world leader in beer.

Coke - They have several ads, but their overall message has been consistent with their market position. Coke as been around a very long time and is the leader in this category. No doubt about it.

The Stupid

Then there is the category winner for the stupidest ad of all.

McCain - This year the candidates are spending more than $5 million each on ads. McCain didn't just waste his money, he spent it for the other guy.

The ad starts out with the chanting of a OBAMA, OBAMA with a scene of Obama walking in front of a massive crowd chanting his name.

The narrator asks, "Is the world's greatest celebrity in the world able to help your family?"

A unflattering picture of Obama appears on the screen about how Obama is going to raise taxes, how he is going to increase government.

Then the ad turns to John McCain and talks about energy and something else that I don't remember.

This ad is STUPID. I'm a republican, but I'm appalled by the lack of fundamental understanding of how to market a candidate.

Obama's ad isn't anything spectacular. Stuff about all of us working together to solve the future's problems, and then a short about Obama. An average ad.

But how can McCain's camp keep doing this? They just spent $5 million USD to campaign for their opponent.

Comparison

Let's do a quick comparison

Visa's ad - A picture of American Express with Morgan Freeman saying, American Express is used by a lot of people, but Visa is better because American Express doesn't do as much as Visa.

Budweiser ad - Picture of Miller Beer, with a bunch of people laughing and drinking the beer, then cutting to Budweiser and saying, yes lots of people like Miller but more people like Bud.

Coke - Picture of a bunch of kids drinking a cola, then Pepsi appearing on the screen, Narrator saying, "Yes, Pepsi is really liked by lots of kids, but we are the best because people who drink Coke know better"

If you are the leader, rule #1 is you don't compare yourself to those in second place. And you certainly don't give your competition more air time, face time, logo time, than your own product.

Also rule #1, you don't concede that your competition is better than you at something. Running an ad admiting that Obama is well liked around the world isn't a good idea, especially when you aren't a very likeable person yourself.

People do business with people they like. And the same is for politics.

This strategy by the McCain camp is idiotic and it is causing me to shake my head. How can anyone believe this kind of self-destructive campaigning will get McCain elected.

Okay, that is my advertising lesson for the day. Now, back to watching the Olympics.

Several people have commented on the 20th anniversary of GroupWise. I thought I would post a few of their comments here:

laurenceobrien said...

You know Richard I have been working with this product its whole life and my entire business career.

Now I am still selling products that work with and around GroupWise, I think we should get Long Service medals at the next Brainshare.

Here's to 20 more...

Greg Arnette said,

My friend Richard Bliss reminded me GroupWise is 20 years old today - launched 8/8/88.

Although not originally known as GroupWise, the product WordPerfect Corporation launched as PerfectOffice on August 8. 1988 was a revolutionary piece of software for the time. An integrated email, calendar, task system with server components that could run on the popular operating systems of the day: DOS, 3COM, Banyan, Netware, etc. My first experience with Office was an installation at Greater Boston Legal Services. The legal professionals there quickly became big fans of electronic mail.

WordPerfect reinvented PerfectOffice a few years later as WordPerfect Office 4.0. More features were integrated, gateways for SMTP and dial-up were added, and a truly modern complete collaboration system debuted. It was no small feat to create a multi-platform email system when DOS, OS/2, Windows, Netware, Vines, and other operating systems were all being used in many different configurations. WordPerfect Office quickly became the standard platform for most law firms, and it was an amazing experience to see the effect simple electronic communication had on the work force. Fax, FedEx, Telex and paper memo usage gradually dropped, and email slowly became a trusted communication tool. Today email is a given and used world-wide for all contacts.

Novell inherited WordPerfect Office and renamed it to GroupWise and has continuously been innovating the platform with the latest release "Bonsai" v8 due to launch soon.


--
--- Greg

Greg Arnette
Sonian Inc.
617-694-8787 - Mobile
617-418-1964 - Direct
800-275-8794 - Main
617-275-8705 - Fax
gregarnette - Skype

http://www.sonian.net
http://blog.soniannetworks.com


James Higley, with MailWise says,

My first memories of GroupWise was when I was worked for The Allegro Group, at the time, GroupWise connected to another MTA via the async gateway. GroupWise was at version 4.0. Most people could not afford a high speed internet connection, so we provided the link of the clients MTA to our SMTP Gateway (now called GWIA). Fun times! GroupWise you provided me many years of productivity, it's been a blast to watch you grow up! Happy Birthday!

My brother called me to remind me that it was GroupWise's birthday. He is the one who talked me into doing email. Said it was going to be big, this was in 1989. He was right. I want to thank him for reminding me of the date and for putting me on the path that has sustained me the past 20 years.

20 years ago on 8/8/88 WordPerfect shipped their very first version of email. It was called WordPerfect Office 2.0 for DOS.

This Friday, 8/8/08 marks the 20th anniversary of Novell GroupWise, formerly known as WordPerfect Office.

The product was called WordPerfect 2.0 because it was a bundle of applications that were originally called WordPerfect Library. When WP Library 2.0 came out they added email, splitting the product into a Library version and an Office version.

WP Office product then expanded to other platforms, including WP Office for the Data General in 1989, then WP Office for Unix.

The original version only worked with a single post office. You couldn't send email to other organizations.

I remember the first email I ever received. I had just joined WordPerfect in May of 1989. I was sent an email from a friend, didn't understand what it was, so I deleted it. My mind couldn't grasp that someone had sent me a message, just to me, and that it had just showed up on my computer without me doing anything.

My friend came over to my desk and wanted to know why I had deleted his email. Even back then, the ability to track status was built in. He had sent me an invitation to his party and I had simply deleted the message. (Sorry Todd)

In Version 3, communication was possible between multiple post offices.

I worked at WordPerfect as a technical support operator. A few individuals were there who helped train me, including Brandon Black, CTO for Messaging Architects, and Trevor Harrison, owner and sysops for NGWList.

With the introduction of Post Office to Post Office communication, it became imperative to teach all of us how message flow worked, so we could troubleshoot a problem over the phone. In those days it was almost always rights issues in the wpcsin and wpcsout directories.

I developed a training course to help new GroupWise support technicians learn how to troubleshoot message flow. The course was called Squirrel 101 and every GroupWise/WP Office Tech support person had to sit through the course.

It pretended that a small squirrel was running around inside the GroupWise system dropping off and picking up files to be delivered. I believe Sean Neumann is still teaching it, or a variation of it.

I know that the certification test that many of helped write contained aspects of the concept. Squirrle 101 lives on, nearly 20 years later and taught many a GroupWise person how to figure out just where the message was and where it wanted to go.

In 1994, Novell purchased WordPerfect, then sold off most of the company but kept WP Office and renamed it to GroupWise, not before it was named Symmetry for about 3 months. But a company in the UK had the name already and threatened to take legal action, so the name was chosen as GroupWise.

Again, thanks to my brother Rodney Bliss who reminded me of the date, and for being a part of the success of GroupWise.

GroupWise has helped me pay my mortgage for nearly 20 years. Happy Birthday GroupWise, and may we see you live for another 20 years.

August 11th, Notify Technologies has announced they will be shipping their connector for GroupWise and the iPhone.

I think it is a smart move on Novell's part to work with a vendor like Notify to deliver the connectivity to the iPhone rather than attempting to to do it themselves.

Yes, most GroupWise customers would prefer that it was free, similar to the GMS model, but in reality, it is best that customers pay for this to a company that is focused on doing nothing but making it work as well as possible.

Novell GroupWise is extremely inexpensive to run. I don't mind paying the small amount extra to get good support for my connection issues.

The iPhone is a business tool and will continue to grow. If GMS isn't going to support it, and BES certainly isn't going to support it, then Notify Technologies solution becomes the only answer.

Unfortunately short-sighted individuals will demand that their organizations abandon GroupWise because they can get support for the iPhone for free with Exchange.

This is lunacy. To incur millions of dollars in additional costs simply to not have to pay a small amount of money for a few individuals within an organization that needs iPhone connectivity.

In today's economy and uncertain economic future, I want to have the kind of budget that can make such fiscally irresponsible choices.

Last week Mobile Today announced that two new devices, the E71 and E66, will not be supporting the BlackBerry Connect software.

BlackBerry Connect allows non-BlackBerry devices to interact with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, allowing an Enterprise to only deploy one system, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, to connect all their devices to the corporate email system.

With this announcement, Nokia is stating that they are distancing themselves from RIM and making a push back into the business phone market.

This split means that business customer's IT departments will be forced to choose one platform or the other, or in some cases, both.

Actually this split is not surprising. In 2005, Nokia acquired Intellisync for $430M USD. Intellisync provides a syncing platform that allows non-BlackBerry devices to sync to email, including Novell GroupWise, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Exchange.

Here is the quote in the Mobile story from Nokia:

Nokia UK MD Simon Ainslie told Mobile: ‘RIM are a competitor and have done a reasonable job in a space that is traditionally ours, so it’s no great surprise that we see this as an opportunity to give consumers a proper choice on what email solution they want.

‘Our approach is to make email a mass-market proposition for everybody, not just for the corporate boardroom group of individuals where BlackBerry has established itself.’

This quote and move my Nokia makes it clear that Nokia believes they have chance to gain some market share in the Enterprise space.

I spoke with Paul DePond, CEO of Notify Technologies, a company that provides a syncing solution for Nokia, BlackBerry devices, and most of the device on the market to Novell GroupWise, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and many other email platforms.

Mr. DePond has been in the industry for more than 20 years and commented the following:

BlissBlog: How significant is this announcement by Nokia to not support BlackBerry Connect in two of their new devices?

DePond: This isn't that big of deal since this has been a long time in coming. Most organizations are already deploying multiple servers to support RIM and Nokia devices.

BlissBlog: Why wouldn't Nokia just continue to support this, covering their bases by having their phones connect to their own servers and to RIM.

DePond: RIM is dominating in the business space. Nokia needs to do something to begin to get their money's worth from their Intellisync acquisition. The BlackBerry Connect service was never as robust as users would like. It allowed basic functionality but not at the same as a BlackBerry device. Nokia thinks they can do a better job with their own syncing server and that enterprise customers will find this a compelling story to support Nokia devices.

Let's not forget, Nokia has a lot more devices out there than RIM. This is a move by Nokia to draw the battle lines for the enterprise customer.

My last blog post discussed my stance on anti-piracy issues with software. Namely, people who steal your software probably aren't going to buy it anyway, so don't waste your effort hassling legitimate customers with anti-piracy protection.

Trevor Harrison, a reader of this blog, (Thanks Trevor), and the list administer for the NGWList, posted a great follow up to my last blog post. I would like to publish it here because I think it does an excellent job of making my point.

Trevor Harrison says:

Two jobs ago I was working at a small dev company that devoted a lot of energy to anti-pirating measures.

They used some kind of copy protection diskette, and then moved to usb dongles when those became available.

Not only did they use those copy protection devices, but we had to write the code to be resistant to someone NOPing out the license test. This meant sprinkling checks all over the place for license code, and not failing immediately, but subtlety corrupting the programs state so that it would crash later on.

Also, we would embed fundamental data constants from the source into the license key data, so if the program was hacked to run without the license, it would produce incorrect values due to the missing data.

All in all, a lot of effort.

I was just a code monkey, so I wasn't privy to any sales figures or data, but it was said that sales did increase after adding the copy protection.

The funny thing is that the main customer demographic was law enforcement officers. Yeah, cops, FBI, etc.

Oh, also, on the other side of the coin, one module of one of the applications was originally written by the founder. It was innovative at the time he wrote it, so not only was it copy protected, but he obscured the code. Not the source code, but the executable that was produced after compiling. Which meant that he had to reuse variables for different things, self-modify the executable code, etc. Basically, try to make a disassembled version unreadable so as to obscure his algorithm.

Well, it also prevented any maintainence on that module. Years after he wrote it, and had his management lobotomy, the commercial application that our app worked on changed file formats, and our app no longer worked in all cases. Unfortunately, we couldn't fix our app because of the obfuscation.

*************

Thanks Trevor for an excellent example.

For the record, I do not use pirated software. I don't have pirated PC games, don't have pirated movies, and don't download pirated music.

This blog entry is about my opinion on software and whether it should be copy protected.

It shouldn't be. Pirates don't matter. Let them steal your software. In an extremely ironic manner, this is good for your software and good for your company.

I recently read an interesting article by Brad Wardell with Stardock called Piracy and PC Gaming
The focus of his message is to build software that people want to buy and build a business that can be sustained by the number of people willing to buy.

I don't advocate piracy and wish that people would not steal software, but that isn't my point. My point is that I don't agree with software developers that spend tremendous amounts of time attempting to make their software protected from being pirated. I believe it is a waste of time and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of how business and the market works.

Like Brad wrote in his article, Customers make the rules, not pirates.

When you sit down and look at the potential market for a piece of software, you don't look at how many people will use it, you look at how many people will buy it. I see so often a discussion where developers or business managers believe that if there are 1,000 people in a market and they price their software at $1,000 per user, then there is a potential market of $1 million dollars.

No, there isn't. That doesn't take into consideration the number of people who are unwilling to pay the price you are asking. Meaning some won't buy and steal it instead. Even though these people are users they can't be considered potential customers.

Someone who steals your software is not a lost customer or a lost opportunity. They are a non-event. Since it doesn't cost you any materials for them to steal software, you the developer are out nothing. Which means, someone using your software for free doesn't cost you anything, and here is the kicker...they become free advertisment for those they will tell your software about who will buy.

Developers, please stop harrassing your customers, the people who legitimately want to run your software, by putting in software licensing protection that simply hurts the very people who are keeping you in business. It certainly doesn't stop the pirates.

Fighting piracy does more damage and creates more costs to the company than simply ignoring them. If they are going to steal it they really aren't a customer in the first place.

Joshua Greenbaum with ZDNet recently wrote an article discussing how Vista will win in the Enterprise but will do it the ugly way.

I'm going to disagree here. If Vista is winning, it is doing it with a pyrrhic victory.

Definition of Pyrrhic: a victory with devastating cost to the victor

Vista has forced all of us, or the 97% of the computer world that runs Windows, to reconsider our decision. For the first time, a true competitor to Vista, Microsoft's latest desktop OS has emerged, and it is XP. Microsoft is attempting to sell all of us something we don't want, at a price we can't afford, to do things that have no value to us.

And it has caused all of us to pause and reconsider. And that is where Vista has lost. For the first time the market is looking around and asking if there is anything easier than Vista? And since we can't have XP, then what are our alternatives.

Some will turn to Linux, with the allure of lower cost and freedom from proprietary tyranny. Others, like myself, will embrace Mac completely, putting up with the problems of making the adjustment because I'm already aware the problems with going to Vista are even bigger.

Some businesses will embrace the Microsoft path of madness. But many others will begin the imperceptible process of slowing down our decision to purchase more Microsoft. The economy will help mask the truth that people aren't willing to send their shrinking IT budgets to Redmond.

This is an opportunity for Red Hat, Ubuntu, Novell, and Apple, and IBM with their Mainframes.

Microsoft has given every single person on the planet a reason to stop and reconsider, and this time there is a wide range of choices.

Vista has lost the Enterprise, not won it.

News Flash - 71 of the top 100 Corporate Executives don't know how to use the Internet.
Most top executives go through their day without turning on their computer or looking at their BlackBerry device.

Report shows that these Executives look to their staff to tell them what is happening in the company and in the world rather than getting the information themselves although some have admitted they have looked at THE GOOGLE so they know what it is.

Reaction to Story

Okay, just so we are clear, the above headline is not true...to a point. Most top executives rely on the tools of technology to stay in touch with their teams and the world itself.

So what happens when one of the candidates for Chief Executive Officer of the Country admits that he is Internet illiterate but has been on THE GOOGLE, so he knows what it is?

Does it matter? Brooke Buchanan, , a McCain spokesperson had this to say,

"He has a Mac and uses it several times a week. He's working on becoming more familiar with the Internet."

I'm not sure that helps.

It reminds me of the scene in the movie American President where Michael Douglas attempts to order flowers from the White House. Here is an unauthorized clip of that scene.



From an image and marketing standpoint I wonder if the McCain group really are as out of step and out of touch with the new generation of voters.

The McCain camp better figure out how to stop the increasing perception that their candidate is old and out of touch with the world outside of Washington.

P.S. Why this blog?

I'm a Republican, have been all my life. But right now I'm frustrated with the amazing gaffes by the team that wants to run our country. Perception is everything and right now they have a strong perception problem and they keep making it worse.

If you haven't heard, The Open Source Project formerly known as ICEcore has announced that they are renaming ICEcore to Kablink.

You can read it here

From a marketing perspective I completely disagree with this decision. Changing names is an important step if you have a specific reason.

Gartner Group changed their name to just Gartner. That is a good move since the word Group causes a sense of smallness to enter into the customer's mind when it is used in the name.

But if you are going to change your name, don't pick something worse.

I typed in Kablink into Google to see what came up on top.

This is what came up as the first link:


First Impressions

When you say the word Kablink outloud it changes the way you perceive the word. Written, it isn't so bad, but when spoken, the mind races to finish the word before you finish speaking it...

"Ka...." in my case is filled in with "Kaput", to be finished, done, over.

Or, if you hear the Blink stronger than the Ka, then it becomes "On the blink", "First one to blink", "blink and you miss it"

Owning a word

I'm not sure what the purpose was here and it is probably not going to make much difference in the long run, but if you are going to do something as drastic as change your name, in the future, focus on capturing something stronger that will help you, not hurt you.

A few months ago I was interviewed by Mary Jander with Byte and Switch. The interview was around the archiving and retrieving of text messages on BlackBerry devices.

In my interview I gave her a quote that has proven to be very popular. When she asked me if it was about compliance issues that was driving the need to track and archive text messages, I replied "...it's about sex -- who's having sex with whom!"

That line got a lot of attention.

Now this week we see a case here in California about a public employee who was using a company device to send personal text messages. On his company device he was sending sexual content to his spouse. He worked for the Ontario Police Department and had been told that his device was not to be used for personal messages. He did it anyway and was able to win in court that having his text messages read violated his 4th amendment rights.

There has been lawsuits on both sides, it appears that Mr Quon, who did the sending, has won the case because the usage policy wasn't specific enough around "Texting" instead the usage policy focused on "Messaging".

Here is a link to a good blog that covers the details Court Decision on Text Messaging

It makes me wonder if there hadn't been the sex material on his device if there would have been a problem.

Two things are identified from the comments.

#1 - Get a strong usage policy about texting and that it is for business use only.

#2 - Send a memo to be signed that everyone understands the policy

And there is a third thing you should always remember.

DON'T SEND PERSONAL SEX MESSAGES TO YOUR WIFE ON YOUR COMPANY PHONE WITH TEXT MESSAGES.

That one seems obvious but it seems it needs to be reminded.

Notify Technologies, a great Novell GroupWise Partner, announced last week that they will be supporting the iPhone for Novell GroupWise.

You can read the press release here

This kind of support from Notify for GroupWise will help. As disclosure, I'm a Notify Technology user, and will be using them to sync my new iPhone. I currently use Notify to Sync my BlackBerry to GroupWise.

I have read criticism on some of the forums chastising Novell for having a 3rd party involved and not providing the integration themselves and that it should be engineered into the product.

The critics are flat out wrong.

Having a solution that comes from a 3rd party has its good points and bad points, but overall, you always want development done by those closest to the customer and closest to the money.

If Novell were to bring iPhone development inhouse and own the process, they would be forced to own it forever. This means that future resources are now tied to supporting this feature, even if the feature loses importance.

Also, by moving the development inhouse instead of relying on a good 3rd party partner, you move the development team away from their core strengths. Novell isn't a mobility company. They aren't focused on mobility issues, but Notify Technologies is (and Toffa, which will also provide support.)

Paying for 3rd party

It is ironic that end users complain about having to pay a 3rd party to get support for a solution like the iPhone. Everything has a cost, and even if Novell developed the integration themselves, somewhere, somehow, end users would still have to pay.

GroupWise is one of the least expensive collaboration applications to run, which means that a GroupWise shop has more money to spend on those upgrades and features that their organization needs and uses rather than buying a bunch of overhead that they can't or won't use.

Document management is the perfect example. Novell GroupWise comes burden with a document management system that used to be the #1 DMS in the industry. But as soon as they started giving it away for free it became difficult for Novell to continue to afford to pay for it. They removed themselves from being close to the DMS customer and removed themselves from the DMS revenue.

Now the rest of us are paying for a decision made a decade ago. There are many who use DMS, but there are more who don't.

I happy to see Notify and Toffa stepping up quickly and look forward to having my new iPhone work with GroupWise, especially since it will be going through a 3rd party vendor that I trust to get it right.

In marketing, an aspect that is often overlooked, is the impact that time has on a company's image and brand. I'm not talking about a little bit of time like 18 months or 3 years. Instead, I'm referring to time like multiple decades, when 20 to 30 years go by. There is a change that occurs to your brand over that amount of time. Change that often doesn't have anything to do with a marketing departments efforts to change the image but instead the image changes itself.

For years, Novell has had an image problem. This image problem, basically that the company was lost, without direction and headed downhill, permeated the entire hi-tech industry. Everyone was on board.

In 2000, Joyce Graff, Senior VP at Gartner Group, wrote a paper stating that customers should get off of Novell GroupWise. Not because the product was bad, but because she felt the company didn't have a future.

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Novell was dominant. But Microsoft made a successful stab the market and took the Network business away from Novell.

This caused the entire industry to have a certain opinion about Novell.

They used to be #1 but now they are washed up. That attitude carried over into everything they did. And every percentage point of market loss, every misstep or blunder, simply compounded the image of a company on its way down.

People at the time formed their opinion about who Novell was and what kind of future Novell had. Once things got bad, there wasn't much Novell could do to change that perception.

But then a funny thing happened. Time. Lots of time. It has been almost 15 years since Novell purchased WordPerfect and acquired GroupWise, then known as WordPerfect Office.

NetWare, once the dominant product in networking, isn't even talked about anymore. The people who remember, are fewer and fewer and the contrast between what Novell used to be and who Novell is today has grown dim with the passage of time.

Today, Novell customers are often young. They are part of the growing Linux community. Their memories don't stretch back 15 years ago to when they were still in high school. They only know Novell today, as the company is today, and don't have opinions formed from a previous lifetime.

Don't Listen to your customers

This long amount of time is important to determine the impact on your customer base. Those customers that have been with you for the decades are not the customers you want to listen to. They are the ones who remember the glory years and want you to go back, but they aren't going to generate the new ideas and new revenue to keep your company going. Novell is especially discovering this.

Instead, make tough choices, turn your back on the established customers, and move forward toward those customers that see you as something new. Who don't remember the past but get excited about your future.

As I parked my car and got ready to go into a restaurant for lunch I saw a young man working the sidewalk with some kind of survey. Having been a young man and knowing how hard it is to get anyone to listen, I paid him the courtesy of stopping and letting him make his pitch. I'm always interested in Elevator pitches.

Dirty Energy

He started off by thanking me for taking a few minutes and then handed me a binder with some very pretty nature pictures on it. He began his pitch about Global Warming and how it is so important that we all do something to stop the special interest groups that are attempting to keep us chained to dirty energy. (Interesting, hadn't heard it said that way). He then explained that dirty energy is oil and coal and that we have to do something about it.

It is very easy, he said, to do something when it only costs about $1 a day to help.

He then paused, I looked him in the eye, thanked him and said, No Thank You, and then went into the restaurant to lunch.

I remember in the 70s when dirty energy was something else. It was nuclear power and all the environmentalists shut down almost all of the Nuke plants around the country. Now, Nuclear is on both presidential candidate's agendas. It is now considered one of the 'clean' energies.

Not with us, then you are pro-global warming

As I left the restaurant, the young man was still standing there, so I asked him if he had any luck with anyone else. No, he said, but then wanted to know why I turned him down. I simply said that I didn't agree with his position.

"If you don't agree then you are pro-global warming" he said.

I paused to be polite, looked at him and said, "No, I didn't say that"

He then said, "If you aren't for our position then you are for global warming"

"No", I said, I simply in disagreement with your definition.

At that point I walked away and got in my car.

Difficult Dialogue

That is positioning at work. Labeling those that are opposed to you with a negative word or idea and then building your case around the logic of your own position. If you aren't with us you are against us.

This makes it very hard to have a real dialogue with someone about an issue. It was a very interesting experience to see how this person's organization is using the global warming debate to craft their own marketing message to deposition the other side.

I didn't even bother to figure out what the other side was selling.