Fabrizio Capobianco

There's not much question mobile devices exploded last year. In 2005, more than 750,000,000 new mobile phones were shipped worldwide, and over 75% of them were more than just a voice handset: they include a Web browser, a contact manager, a calendar, a mail client, or Java. These are small handheld computers disguised as phones. This year, millions of new phones will have enough horsepower to run Linux: 140MHz CPUs with megabytes of memory. This will mean big opportunities for Linux games, utilities, and client software that run on the handset. But handheld device software isn't the killer app. The real opportunity is to make these phones into clients for distributed applications. That can mean transactional clearing, or location-based services, or custom applications. Thanks to tools like Eclipse and client-side frameworks like J2ME, creating these new applications... (more)

Balancing Open Source and Commerce

If ever there was a topic that someone was qualified to discuss, it would be me talking about how open source companies need to balance the interests of their community while making money. In fact, our company is named Funambol because it is based on the Latin words funis (rope) and ambulare (walking) that mean a tightrope walker. Managing an open source company requires constantly walking a tightrope that balances the needs of the community and the business. Every step involves decisions between keeping the community committed and satisfying commercial customers. Choosing the r... (more)