Openbravo wants Apple engineers: The iPhone, a “breathtaking” experience!

I had the pleasure to play with the iPhone this summer while at LinuxWorld San Francisco. As Steve Jobs usually says in his Macworld presentations: “it is breathtaking”. As of yet, I cannot purchase one because as you know, it is neither homologated nor active for European mobile networks. Although I couldn’t experience the device while it functioned working as a phone, what I experienced at the Apple store indicates that it is really an amazing product.

For me above all it apparently is:

1) A best in class benchmark in usability success stories (check the following video )

• Your feel as attracted to the design as with the iPods
• After 2 or 3 minutes of usage, you not only know how to use the device but also you experience incredible navigability features that are clear innovations in software applications. Features like zoom in zoom out, the capability to scroll up and down with inertia, the magnifier functionality that pops up when clicking a word with your finger to correct it...the list goes on.
• The applications which are included by default in the device are just very well thought out

2) A device that redefines the mobile internet experience and makes you truly believe in it

• The industry has been talking a lot about mobile data … I have not believed much in this industry (with the exception of the SMS), when experiencing the mobile data experience that other terminals would give you; but now wait until you experience the iPhone when…
• … web browsing with a wi-fi connection … amazing! … this is really web browsing and not what we have experienced in the past
• … experience other widgets like the Maps … you can easily find routes to places when traveling, …
• … weather … you can easily get the weather forecasts (definitively a killer up for my wife!)
• … Youtube … watch videos right away, and many more that make me think that this new iPhone really redefines how the mobile industry will evolve.

Overall, and obviously with a disclaimer since I still have not fully tried out the phone (things like the batteries,…), big kudos to the Usability and Engineering team at Apple. If anyone there is looking to join Openbravo, please send your resumes to careers@openbravo.com. We’ll be more than happy to talk to you! ;-)

SugarCRM targeting an IPO

Martin LaMonica writes an article about SugarCRM quoting John Roberts, SugarCRM’s CEO, who already talks about a potential IPO. John anticipates in this article that the company, which now has 125 employees, can grow to $100 million in yearly revenue in the next couple of years. It is incredible how fast Sugar is growing if you take into account that the company was started three years ago. I think this is great news not only for Sugar but also for other professional start-ups leveraging the open source and SaaS business opportunity like Openbravo. The more we succeed… the more open the world of software will become!

From here… best of luck to Sugar (for sure they will still need to overcome many challenges) and all these companies.

Introducing Paolo Juvara to Planet Openbravo

It is a great pleasure to post about our new Chief Products Officer at Openbravo: Paolo Juvara. Paolo is both a great professional and great individual, and I am proud he is part of the team. He joined us last Aug. 16th (see press release here) from Oracle, bringing a wealth of experience in diverse Product Engineering areas (from Financials to Business Intelligence, Manufacturing & Distribution, Supply Chain Management, and, for the past four years, CRM Service) and, having understood how open source is turning around the software industry, he joins with the right attitude to help us open the world of ERPs.

Some hours ago he has posted a message in one of our forums requesting your opinion about our product, feedback on our plans and desires for the future Openbravo. He joins with great ideas to inject in our roadmap that will obviously bring emotion in the sometimes too-burnt ERP world and I am confident that with your feedback they can only improve. Let's help him contributing with your suggestions here.

Thank you all!

Energy for the entrepreneur!

Since April 2006, date in which Openbravo published its source code, our team has traveled to the US in more than 5 different occasions. The last one was some days ago when we participated for our second consecutive year in Linux World San Francisco and won an award.

This short post is to share with you what I love from the US and more specifically from Silicon Valley. So here I go with the list:

• I love the entrepreneurial culture and how entrepreneurs are recognized by society. Success is obviously positively recognized and failure is not perceived as disaster in the professional careers of those starting up new businesses
  
• I love the large concentration of entrepreneurs that exists and specially the large pool of skilled software professionals ready to jump ships to new start-ups. Synergies between the corporate world and the university and research community are much more efficient
• I love the attitude that successful entrepreneurs have to help others, their practical advise that often give you to help you grow your business into a market leader and overall the rhythm of conversations when you talk business with them
  
• I love organizations that are ready to work with start-up companies both providing services (adapting their offering) and becoming your clients (being more exposed to start-up risks)
• I love the large number of VCs ready to invest in new breakthrough ideas taking an active role in shaping them.

Conclusion: If you are an entrepreneur go charge your batteries from time to time with energy shots from the Valley. It is worthwhile!