How to create your browser app on the iPhone

Since I started going around with my iPhone with the additional icon on it, showing the contacts application included in the free myFUNAMBOL portal, a lot of people have asked me how can they have it as well, or do the same with their browser-based app.


The goal is simple: having an additional icon on your screen, with your logo and the name of your application, that fires up a browser to your site. So you can keep the Safari for browsing and that icon to access that web-based app you really like (for me, it is one-click access to all my contacts over-the-air, with search capabilities, since the native iPhone contact app has zero search and I have 700+ contacts...).

The assumption is that you have already done jailbreak and you have ssh access to your iPhone. If you did it already, I am not responsible for anything that happens on your iPhone (or the warranty). If you did not, well... good luck with the rest of this ;-)

Steps:

1. Create a folder called Funambol.app under /Applications
   
2. Copy all the files under /Applications/MobileSafari.app to /Applications/Funambol.app (making sure you copy also the subdirectory English.lproj). You can use iphoneinterface, sftp or, better, do a "cp -r"
3. Make sure /Applications/Funambol.app/MobileSafari can be executed (chmod 755 MobileSafari)
4. Overwrite the existing icon.png with the Funambol icon.png in /Applications/Funambol.app (or make your 60x60 PNG file)
   
5. Overwrite the existing Info.plist with the Funambol Info.plist in /Applications/Funambol.app (the trick is simply for the app to be called something differently than com.apple.mobilesafari)
6. Reboot the iPhone

That's it. You now have a second browser on your iPhone, with a pretty icon named Funambol. The two browsers share bookmarks and history at boot, but once started they will live separate lives. That means you can click on your Funambol icon, open the http://my.funambol.com/iphone URL and it won't change, while you use your Safari icon to browse your favorite sites.

Change Funambol with your application and you have one-click access to your favorite web app. Nice.

Is Apple still thinking different?

Years ago, Apple launched the "Think Different" campaign. It worked nicely. When your customers are a small minority, why not make them feel special? Otherwise, they will just leave you.

Few years later, Apple has made a spectacular comeback. The AAPL stock went up almost 10% in after hours trading today. They are selling Macs and iPods like crazy (and a few iPhones ;-) They are becoming mainstream. Why? Because they now sport Intel laptops, iTunes runs on Windows and so on. They are thinking mainstream...

Now I am starting to wondering what they have in mind for developers on the iPhone. If you look at their current propaganda, it is all about Web 2.0 applications. Do they really think running apps on a mobile browser is the best for us? Do they really believe this is the way for thinking differently in mobile, instead of having applications on the phone? Are they really crazy?

Maybe not. If I look at my iPhone tonight, I have full ssh access as root on it, I can sftp files to it, I have a Funambol icon on the screen that opens up a browser (separate from the Safari one)... I have full control of the iPhone and I can develop any app I want on it. I do not need the browser anymore, I can create real local mobile apps (I just wish I had the time and the skills to do it ;-)

Now, it took our beloved hackers three weeks to make it. It was too easy. Too easy. The root password can be cracked in 12 seconds with basic tools. The system is completely open, once you have control of it. It is a developer dream, that leaves Windows Mobile, Palm and BlackBerry in the dust.

I have the feeling Apple left the door open. They could not do it "officially" because at&t wanted to control everything, from ringtones to applications. The door is therefore officially closed, but you just had to push it a bit to slam it open. Now we can build real mobile applications and more...

They might be still thinking differently. But they are becoming way smarter at it. They are now thinking mainstream, and they still make you feel different.

Off-topic from HostingCon 2007

I am in Chicago today, attending HostingCon 2007. A very interesting conference, dedicated to a market that needs to go mobile, has big issues with device compatibility and has been using open source for a long time. Now you know why I am here... If you are in Chicago and want to meet, please drop me a note. Yes, if you are hosting email... we can mobilize it :-)

Now the off-topic. Why in the world do American foosball tables have thirteen players per team?

Do foosball table manufacturers watch their daughters play soccer? Did they ever notice there are eleven players per team? Where did they get the idea that there are three goalies?

I am going to design an Italian baseball table with a square instead of a diamond and see how it goes...

Mobile data is NOT killing SMS

I just read about a recent Informa report that total mobile data revenues (excluding SMS) in the US were $11.3 billion in Q1 07, up 40% from last year. This number represents one third of all data revenues. The rest is SMS.

So you would guess that mobile data services (including email and IM) are eating into the SMS plate.

Wrong.

SMS usage is up 50% worldwide, with 620 billion messages sent in Q1. SMS revenues are up as well ($34.3 billion in a quarter!), although they do not follow the growth in messages directly, because of the bundles.

How do you read this? Well, let me try:

1. Consumers want messaging more than ever
2. Consumers are still willing to spend a lot of money on messaging
3. If you add email and IM in the mix, that does not kill SMS
4. Email and IM are additional sources of significant revenues for carriers

If you are a carrier, this is the time for consumer mobile email...

Funambol is a 2007 AO 100 Top Company

Last year we made the Red Herring 100. They do not name companies twice, so this year we won something else ;-) We made in the 2007 AO 100 Top Companies, which is a pretty trendy list.

Looking at the list, I noticed:

1. 13% of the companies in the list are mobile (thanks to the iPhone!). For example, there is AdMob, which is a cool company. Some of the others are mobile play but they do not know it yet: for example, Jajah (believe me they are a mobile play)
2. 5% of the companies in the list are open source, such as rPath, MuleSource and others.

Bottom line: MOBILE OPEN SOURCE RULES :-)

Look, what a nice icon!

Unfortunately, the quality of the picture is quite bad... But those with a good eye might notice a Funambol icon on my iPhone (my apologies to Safari ;-)

How to escape (iPhone) jail

I have a bet out (with myself) that someone will be able to completely hack the iPhone in less than two weeks. I am running out of time but it looks like people are getting very close. There is an (open source) tremendous effort on the iPhone Dev Wiki (that I am not linking because they asked not to), which is starting to bear fruits.

In a nutshell:

1. They know how to activate the iPhone without at&t (not how to unlock it, yet)
2. They apparently have gained full access to the file system, a.k.a. "How to Escape Jail" (although they have not posted software yet, so this is just a rumor)

Bottom line, I believe we'll have something before the end of the weekend. The issue is that Apple will be able to wipe every effort out with a single firmware update. It looks like a crazy race where evil (close as in jail) will sadly prevail against good (open as in free), but it is fun to watch anyway ...

You know for which side I am cheering ;-)

The iPhone nano is coming soon(er)?

I have been convinced from day one that the current iPhone will be a niche. After using one for a while, I am more convinced than ever... Too expensive, too slow, too closed. A fantastic device, do not get me wrong, but I am not giving up my Windows Mobile device with Funambol installed. I simply cannot live without push email and push calendar anymore. Or without a real keyboard. It looks to me like the same experience I had with Tivo and the DirecTV DVR. When you get spoiled, it is hard to go back. Even if the new device has more features and it is gorgeous. The basic is missing and I simply need it.

Now, if I am not switching to the iPhone (and I am a smartphone user), then who would? People that do not have an iPod and are planning to upgrade their dumbphone. What will suffer? The iPod sales numbers...

Yep, the iPhone will eat into the iPod market.

What can Apple do? Launch the iPhone nano as soon as possible... I wrote about it many times, this will be the killer device (and it would be a dream if Apple agreed with at&t only for the iPhone and they would made this completely unlocked...) but the rumors are now stronger. JP Morgan reported that it could happen even before Christmas. It is the only way for Apple to avoid iPod numbers to collapse...

Will it look like this?
Probably not, but it would be interesting to guess which features would they cut from the original to the nano. What would I cut? Let me try:

1. Calendar -> only for geeks and if it is not synchronized, useless even for geeks...
   
2. Stocks -> only for geeks with money (very small category)
3. Calculator -> only for geeks that forgot how to divide numbers, due to excessive use of computers
4. Notes -> who takes notes on a mobile device with a supercrippled keyboard??
5. Clock -> believe me, you have another device on you that tells you what time it is...
   
6. Weather -> well, this would be really nice to have but I am out of room... You'll have to use the browser for it, sorry.

What would you cut? What do you really need on a phone? Can you live without weather or would you rather sacrifice maps?

iPhoneDevCamp starts Friday night

Here is an event not to be missed if you live in the Bay Area. Tomorrow night (Friday) starts iPhoneDevCamp, "Making the web a better place for iPhone". It is a developer meeting, going on for the entire weekend. The outcome? An unlocked iPhone (just kidding)...

Funambol is sponsoring the pizza on Saturday night. Hey, it is developers on a mobile platform, we just launched the first contacts app for the iPhone, built by a bunch of Italians... we definitely could not have missed it and pizza clearly fits the bill. Just to keep your expectations in check, it is going to be American pizza ;-)

I'll see you there.

IT Conversations

For those who like podcasts and do not mind my Italian accent, I had a (pretty long) chat with Scott Mace of IT Conversations a few weeks ago.

myFUNAMBOL: your contacts on the iPhone

So I listened to the imaginary suggestion of Steve Jobs and I showed up Friday at 6 pm at the Apple store in Palo Alto. I saw the long line (about 150 people), but not as long as I would have expected. I did not see Steve Jobs (who appeared from the sky in the store, some say). However, I saw a guy tearing one iPhone apart, in front of a camera (just for fun, I guess). The wait was too long, so I went out and had few beers with friends (that is what you are supposed to do on a Friday night, not standing in line...) and I came back at 10 pm (ok, maybe the beers were not few :-) Five minutes wait, and I got my iPhone. Went home, tried to activate it, waited until the next morning and had it working (and no hangover).

Now, the iPhone is an amazing device, with one missing feature that makes it just a toy for me, not something I can use everyday. It is missing over the air sync. That is, you cannot sync your address book or calendar, unless you are at home, your PC is on and you are connecting the iPhone to it with a cable.

I need my address book on the iPhone. Having wifi and cellular connectivity and being forced to use a cable is insane. I could do cable sync in the nineties with my Palm.

So... we decided to launch myFUNAMBOL.

myFUNAMBOL is a demo installation of our Carrier Edition (without push, in most cases). You can get email on your device for free (that is, your RAZR, Nokia, but also Windows Mobile) and you can sync your address book and calendar from whatever phone you have. It includes Outlook and iPod sync, but you can use the community plugins to sync Thunderbird, Yahoo, Evolution and so on. More info about it is on our web site.

The coolest thing is that you can use it with the iPhone.

So, if you have an iPhone and an old phone, you can sync your old phone and access your contacts on the iPhone. Or you can use Outlook, Thunderbird, Evolution to keep your address book updated in real time. Even Yahoo address book is there. Steve Jobs would say "this is the best portal we ever did".

For now, the myFUNAMBOL portal is beta and we are open it slowly. We received hundreds of requests in the first few hours and we are processing them. It is an early beta, so... be patient with us. In any case, more to come. This is just the beginning...

My imaginary review of the iPhone

I was surprised when I received the call from Apple Marketing. They asked me to review the iPhone two weeks in advance. I thought they could not give a damn about open source and the largest mobile community of developers, but I was wrong. They wanted me to review the iPhone.

I spent the last two weeks with the iPhone. The bottom line is: it is an awesome device, too pricey for many, too slow for most, too closed for sure. But just right for me (a niche of one).

It is really small and light. The screen is fantastic. The virtual keyboard sucks, despite the marketing hype, because it does not have tactile feedback. If you got used to T9 on cell phones, this is immensely better, so just suck it up. If you got used to a BlackBerry, keep it because you will still be much more productive, but you will still look like the salesman that you are, even with a camera and an MP3 player.

Other reviewers probably live on the North Pole and do not sweat. I live in California and I do. The screen is greasy after the two weeks and I have to clean it once a day. But who cares? It is so cool to take it out in public that I am even happy to keep cleaning it. Yesterday, I was at a Starbucks and I took it off to clean it. Girls attacked me. If you are single and geek (not that I am), spend the night in front of an Apple store. It will pay off during the weekend.

I still do not get why I had to activate it by myself, instead of having someone nice doing it for me in the store. I am working for Steve Jobs for free and I should feel better. But, hey, I did it in the comfort of my home and I could buy it at an Apple store... So it must be good for me.

Not having third party apps on the iPhone is just insane. "The first kit for software developers that is not an SDK (software developer kit)!" said Steve Jobs during WWDC. Yep, it is called a browser... Hey, many will do their best to build web apps but I miss some of the ones I have on my Windows Mobile. Again, who cares? No girl ever was attracted to a BlackJack.

Being forced to sync it via cable is so Palm HotSync and last millennium... Man, I have wifi and cellular connectivity (albeit slow like my 56k modem), and I cannot sync it over the air with my Outlook or Thunderbird. I would love to see the address book of my old crappy cell phone on the iPhone. I would really need Funambol for it (stay tuned...).

When I was about done with my review, I received a call from Steve Jobs himself. I was shocked. He told me to stop writing dumb things about the iPhone and Apple. He made sure I was informed that he does not read my blog. Before hanging up, he screamed "wake up and go get yourself in line in front of one of our stores, or you are not going to get one, you idiot!!".

I woke up.

Teens and mobile email

There is a debate out there about teens and their use of email vs. Instant Messaging (IM). Anecdotal evidence suggests they use more IM than email on desktops, these days. If you translate it into mobile - where they spend a ton of time and cash they did not earn - this might indicate that mobile email is not interesting for this segment. Not a small thing, since teenagers represent the fastest growing segment and the most technically savvy. On top of it, kids become adults one day... They will be the market-makers for the next 40 years...

A recent report in the UK from the BBC surprised me a bit.

In a nutshell:

1. 50% of 25 to 34-year-olds told ICM researchers they would not be able to carry on without e-mail
2. 44% of 35 to 44-year-olds said e-mail was vital
3. 41% o of teenagers said they relied on e-mail

I actually thought the gap between young and less-young would be bigger. Maybe young Brits are too shy to use IM ;-)

Anyway, the debate is interesting but, in my opinion, moot. Email and IM solve two different needs. Email is for asynchronous communication, IM is for synchronous communication. If I send you an IM, I expect you to answer right away. If I send you an email, I expect you to answer in a reasonable timeframe. IM does not kill email or viceversa. Both nicely co-exist.

IM requires people to have more time for others and be "available for interruption" (it has presence). It works well when you are a kid. IM time is higher over email time for teens (but email is not zero, you still need asynchronous communication...). When you grow up and start working, your IM time diminishes and your email time increases. I would bet that email time wins over IM time as soon as you join your first job.

Bottom line: teens are using email and will embrace mobile email (although maybe using it less than mobile IM, which is the SMS killer). Once they turn 24, I believe the switch happens. New generations with mobile experience will transform themselves in avid mobile email people. Consumer mobile email is going to be even bigger year after year.

The iPhone is going to change my world

No, I haven't changed my mind. I believe the first iteration of the iPhone is going to be for a niche. However, it is going to be a niche with a bang. The next three months will be iPhone mania. The first wave of buyer is going to be strong and iPhones will fly off the shelves. There is a cult around Apple products. They never gave up believing. They feel different. They are going to buy it at $600 + taxes, plus a $50/month voice+data plan (my prediction ). [update on June 26th: I missed by a bit, it is $59.99...]

Whatever happens next, I do not care. The iPhone has already changed the mobile world forever. More will happen from now to the end of the year. There is no way back.

Why? Because a carrier (at&t) completely gave up to a device manufacturer (Apple), opening up its entire network. This will force other carriers to compete ("my friend can do it with the iPhone on at&t, why can't I do the same with you?"). The wall garden is going to collapse quickly. Data plans will emerge to compete, because no carrier wants to give up its customers to at&t and the iPhone (the same is valid for Europe and Asia, they just have few months to prepare themselves).

If you are a carrier, what can you do? Offer services. Go beyond voice and SMS. Even with the network open, you still control your users. But you have to offer them a reason to stay with you. Give your consumers push email from wherever they have email, give them IM, give them content. Do not let device manufacturers and portals eat in your plate. React, embrace and remain relevant. Do not let them transform you into a dumb pipe. You still have time (not too much, though...).

The iPhone is the best damn thing that ever happened to mobile.

Look at portals... Google and Yahoo have been turning up the mobile volume by three notches. Yahoo is all about mobile. There is even a big board on 101 about Yahoo Mobile (that's THE sign of a turning point ;-)

Look at Microsoft... They just launched MSN for mobile, a week ago. "We firmly believe there is an inflection point here," said Phil Holden, Microsoft's director of mobile Web services. "There's a new battle, a new frontline developing on the mobile phone."

Look at device manufacturers. Nokia and Sony Ericsson brands are as strong as they ever been. They have a phenomenal opportunity to come back and play the Apple game. They are putting more and more open standards on devices. Nokia is even putting web servers on a phone (and it is open source). Imagine the chances of that happening with a wall garden...

June 29th is the turning point for the mobile market, the one we have waited for years. The fun starts now.

The Open Source CEO Series

Matt just started a new blog at CNET and needs to attract visitors. Since he is a marketing genius, he came up with the idea of hosting other open source people on it that would tunnel visitors to his blog (just kidding ;-). He started with Dave Rosenberg, then Marten Mickos, then his boss John Powell and finally Javier Soltero. He quickly ran out of good names, so I ended up being the fifth. Glad to be in such a good company. I recommend reading what the other CEOs are saying, because they are very smart people.

For those curious but affected by hyperlink-laziness here you have the content of what I told him (his blog has some additional comments, but mostly around his inability to choose a soccer team that can actually win something, instead of just talking about it...).

Name, position, and company of executive
Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO, Funambol

Year company was founded and year you joined it
The company was founded in 2003, but I was working on it before then.

Stage of funding and venture firms that have invested
We raised a Series A round in 2005 from Walden International (Mary Coleman) and HIG (Fred Sturgis). We then did a follow-up round in December of 2006, for a total of $10.5 million.

Background prior to current company
Funambol is the third company that I have started. The first one, in 1994, was Internet Graffiti - the first web company in Italy. The entire operation was run on Linux machines, loaded with the slackware distro (yep, that's A1, A2, ... floppies). In the late 1980s I was enlightened to the path of open source by Alessandro Rubini, a colleague in my university lab, where he wrote the Linux mouse device driver. My last serious job was at Reuters in 2002, where I ran operations around an online trading platform.

Biggest surprise you've encountered in your role with your company
The speed at which the industry has warmed to commercial open source. In late 2004, people started to believe me when I told them that I had found a way to balance being open source and making money, also known as funambolism or tight-rope walking. Before that, people dismissed me with "Yeah, right. Good luck with that." It changed so quickly - almost overnight. I was shocked.

Hardest challenge you've had so far at your open source company
Convincing salesmen to filter out 99% of their leads. The biggest issue for an open source company is defining its focus in the sales process. Going after anybody that comes to your door - even if they want to pay you - is guaranteed suicide. Commercial open source is all about qualification and filtering. It is tough to tell someone, "Sorry, we are not going to sell to you, even if you want to buy," but particularly if you're a salesperson. But you must if you want to succeed.

If you could start over again from scratch, what would you do differently?
I would try harder to hire Matt Asay. Letting him go to Alfresco was a mistake. Hey, you makes mistakes here and there.... :-)

Top three pieces of advice for would-be open source CEOs

1. Do not chase every lead that comes in the door. They might be few at the beginning, but if your project is a success you will be inundated by them. Build processes and tools to qualify your leads and make tough choices or you will drown quickly.
2. Fire anyone that says "We win simply because we are open source." Being open source is just a component of your strategy and most likely your big differentiator. But if all you have is that you are open source, someone else will do the same and kill you.
3. If you realize your project is not growing fast enough, maybe you made a mistake to make it open source in the first place. You need a big market to have a large open source project. If you attack a niche, you won't make it. If this is the case, look for the next gig. There is probably nothing you can do about it. De-open sourcing is not an option.

Why is Yahoo collecting my cell number?

It might be the open source soul in me, but I always hated companies collecting information about me. However, I realize sometimes it is a necessary evil and I can live with that. At least, I expect something tangible in exchange. If you just get my data and you give me nada, I get pissed.

One spectacular example is Yahoo Go, advertised quite a bit lately. There is an ad to get you to download Yahoo! Go 2.0 for Windows Mobile, shown below. I would suggest you click on it...


If you followed my suggestion, you have been presented with a page that starts with:

We found 79 phones that work with Yahoo! Go

However, if you scroll that list, there is NOT EVEN ONE phone that works! They all say "Coming Soon"... The message should say "We found 0 (zero, nada) phones that work with Yahoo! Go"...

Why would Yahoo do it? Because there is a clear invitation on the right to put your phone number in. They will gladly collect it, send you a message (for which, you'll pay in the US) and have you walk into their site from your phone. At the end, they will tell you your phone is not supported, but they will notify you once it is ready.

If they know my phone is not supported, why are they collecting my cell phone number? Why am I spending my money to receive a message? What do I get back? Nada de nada... I am pissed...

Let's hope the Chief Yahoo! now Chief Executive Yahoo! turns his company around. It starts from the small things, like this one. Don't be evil.

My personal review of the Helio Ocean

A few days ago, I walked into the Helio store in Palo Alto, talked to a cool store guy and walked out with an Helio Ocean. I am clearly biased on the device, since Funambol powers it, but I hope I can still be balanced in my review ;-)

Done with the caveat, a first impression: the Ocean is an awesome device :-)

The thing that makes it unique, for starters, is the sliding dual keyboard. That is, you slide out the keypad from the bottom when you need to call someone; you slide out the keyboard from the side when you want to type (and the screen turns into landscape).

I am a fan of tactile feedback, maybe because I descend from monkeys. I believe having a keyboard to type is a must, if you want to do email or IM. I am willing to change my mind in two weeks (the iPhone birth date), but I had confirmation of my suspicions last week at the Apple WWDC. On the Apple site, check the video of the VP iPhone Software typing on the iPhone : he wants to type "john". He does "j", then "o", then "j" again (oops), then backspace, then "j" again (ooooooops), then backspace and finally "h" and "n". Agreed, he was on stage and everybody was comparing his performance to Steve Jobs... but if the VP iPhone can't type on it under pressure, I sure will have the same issue while driving (note: there are studies that say that the vast majority of mobile emails are typed while driving...).


The communication features of the Ocean are astonishing. You can do email with Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Earthlink, Windows Live and your POP/IMAP. With Yahoo, it is even push (nice ;-) You can do IM with Yahoo, MSN and AIM (no Google Talk). You can sync your address book with Helio, Yahoo and AOL (via SyncML, that is). It is a messaging monster.

To be honest, all those options and brands are even overwhelming. Trying to pack every email, IM and sync brand on the phone is confusing and limiting. For example, it does not scale (imagine adding even more brands, like MySpace, Facebook, and so on). Also, you cannot filter anything (and I do not want spam on my phone or - worst - to be notified when there is spam waiting for me...). My recipe for this is: one Email client, one IM client, one Sync client. They all talk to a server (or gateway), branded by the operator, where you can easily define filters and set whatever sources you have. Packing everything in the phone won't cut it in the long run.

Other nice features are Google Maps, with GPS support, and a search tool that looks into different search engines. Even Yelp. That is: you are looking for an Italian restaurant, you do a search based on where you are (the phone knows it...), you get results, you check what people say about those places and call the restaurant to make a reservation with a click. That's the power of mobility, localization and a device that has an unlimited data plan...

When you have GPS, cool things happen. For example, you take a picture and it gets "geotagged" when you send it to Helio Up. That means you do not need to write on the back of your picture where you were when you took that picture. Pictures tagged with date and location are the future of photo albums.

There are shortcomings, though. For example, you cannot add another sync server... Although I have inside information that it would work ;-) And you cannot sync calendars (well, also that one I know it can be easily done...). Even if you have a pIMAP capable server, it does not push emails to the device (it is Yahoo only). Even more, you cannot download Java apps on the device, if they are not on deck. That's insane: it has a fully open browser but you can't add apps to it?? If you are an open source developer, good luck trying to find a way to post applications on the deck. They do not even give you a link or an email of someone you can talk to... When will they understand this is what makes such a phone really useful??? Even Steve Jobs realized it recently. Give the power to developers, they will shock you.

Bottom line, the Ocean has a sliding keyboard. Big plus. It also costs $195 (vs. $500+ of the iPhone). Huge plus... It has 3G (vs. 2.5G). Big difference, since you do not need wifi.

It feels light, it feels fast, it is packed with a million features, it is reasonably priced. It is an awesome device.

The iPhone killer? Probably not (brand matters), but if you are looking at an iPhone alternative to spend less money and have great features... it is probably it.

Europe and New York

I am in Europe this week. I will be in Milan today, Rome tomorrow for an interesting event I am speaking at (with the US Ambassador and great entrepreneurs), Frankfurt on Friday and then back to the US, on the East Coast for a few days (New York). If you happen to be living in any of my stops, send me a note and I will be happy to meet.

The knight in shining armor

Writing nice things about your own product is bad manners. Linking someone else is pretty much the same, but you can always say "he said that, not me" and "I do not know the guy at all, I never met him and I did not pay him!".

Today, I was forwarded this post of someone I swear I do not know, never met and definitely did not pay...

Finally, Funambol
Several weeks ago, I got a Motorola Q–a very nice Windows Mobile based smartphone. I went back to Google and my “knight in shining armor,” Funambol, appeared (formerly Sync4j). As a commercial product with almost everything open source, I got an enterprise solution for free. First step was downloading and installing the server–which I put on my Ubuntu server. After 20 minutes of that and configuring my firewall, I was onto getting plugins. I installed one into Thunderbird that syncs Lightning and my contacts. I installed one on my new Motorola Q, one in my old PDA, and one in Outlook for good measure. The plugins have nice integration into Thunderbird, Outlook, and Windows Mobile, while not using Activesync. One awesome benefit is that I can now sync through the internet–no more USB cable. It just works.

The Winner
Funambol, in my mind, is the clear winner of syncing solutions. Cross-platform, open source, free, nice UI, remote syncing, and solid performance. There are plugins for Blackberry, Palm, Evolution, SugarCRM, Exchange, LDAP, iPod, and quite a few others. I now have my calendar and contacts synced on multiple computers and smart devices. I am happy since I am free of Windows and getting the most out of my smartphone.

Wow, I feel I should meet this person, know him/her and offer him/her at least a beer (so that s/he won't be able to write about us anymore ;-)

Arriving #1 at Monaco

Nope, I did not win the Monaco Gran Prix. And Ferrari was actually very slow this year in Monte Carlo...

However, Funambol yesterday won Best Messaging Infrastructure / Platform at the 4th Annual Global Messaging Awards. This was part of the Global Messaging 2007 conference in Monte Carlo.

This was "awarded to the product that has enhanced the existing messaging network by providing greater capacity, security, reliability or adds an additional application." (uuhhh, nice ;-)

As part of this, they provided us with a nice looking glass trophy. And nope, Caroline was not part of the ceremony and they did not give us good champagne to spray around (well, I believe, I wasn't even there accepting the award, Daniel was...)