DISQUS

hey, thanks. I'll try it. I've tried to get my delicious links into my blog at least a hundred times. I'll try once more. :)

Robert is right when he says that the embargo isn't going away anytime soon. But that's because the embargo is actually a pretty effective marketing tool. Sure, embargoes leak. Sure, they piss off some people. But they also generate a massive amount of mainstream press coverage that blogs can't even touch. And it's so not even close, too. When we "launched" OpenSolaris, we did it with 150 engineering blogs giving tours through 10 million lines of their kernel code. Perfect for well-connected and pretty high end OS developers. But would the mainstream press cover that in any comprehensive way at all? Or even understand it? Naaaa. Even though opening the company's core product has changed Sun from top to bottom, most of the press -- even the tech press -- would have missed it or missed most of it. When we opened Java just a few weeks ago, there were many, many Java and Sun bloggers out there, but they didn't generate the press coverage that marketing did with their so-called old school tools and techniques. Perhaps it's because Java and Solaris are pretty high end code bases and not really mainstream consumer products, but I just don't see bloggers even touching mainstream PR for press impact. And yes, that pisss me off a bit, but I think it's reality. Maybe it's because the corporate press industry is pretty closely tied to the corporate PR industry. Who knows. For the most part, Sun's thousands of bloggers are talking to developers, not the press. Ok, so Sun's more of an enterprise infrastructure play and not a household brand on store shelves like, say, Microsoft. So, I wonder, what would garner more press attention -- (A) Microsoft open sourcing Windows by just letting their bloggers announce it, or (B) having their global PR operation announce it via some embargoed Microsoft launch (but possibly in collaboration with their bloggers). I'd bet on B absolutely any day of the week. I used to be one of those bloggers who thought that blogs would take out mainstream marketing operations, but the longer I blog the less I believe it.

fyi: the link in my comment (#4) works fine if you remove the period at the end. Sorry about that. :)

It's interesting to see how HP is managing his situation and contrast that to how Toyota executives handled a recent crisis involving recalls and quality. In July, Toyota president Watanabe bowed and said, "I take this seriously and see it as a crisis ... I want to apologize deeply for the troubles we have caused." Reference here: http://www.baselinemag.com/print_article2/0,121.... Not the same situation, obviously, but I'm focusing more on how the officers of a corporation respond to a crisis (any crisis). The Toyota situation utterly fascinates me. The HP situation doesn't, unfortunately. A quick note to Gary (comment #3): I totally agree that the original leak is getting lost here, but that's because the reaction to that leak at the company appears to be profoundly more serous.

All the best to you and your family, Robert. You are not alone, believe me.

"Things could get interesting."

I totally agree. Things are going to get very interesting in multiple ways, I bet. And faster than people expect, too. This is good news today.

Robert ... The "exclusive" may not be totally dead for marketing/PR people and executives, but for developers I think it's pretty much toast. I can't think of a story about OpenSolaris that has appeared in the press before it appeared in our blogs and/or on our mail lists. There may be a few out there but not very many. In fact, what gets me is the massive amount of "news" our community generates quite openly that never makes it into the press! Most developers don't care, of course, and neither do I. Many do, however, and it offers an innovative marketing/PR pro an opportunity to mine the blogs and mail lists for stories and context and to point a reporter to that conversation so he/she can engage. That may not be an "exclusive" but it's a gallon of news nonetheless and it's just sitting there. Here's the catch, though: for marketing and PR people to be able to do this they *must* join the community and participate as openly as everyone else does. You can't fake this, you can't do it from the outside, and you can't do it from the perspective of an executive client -- it has to be done from the context of the developers within the community. That's the only way to earn trust in a meritocracy -- join and participate. The information is open, the developers are open, so the marketing has to be open as well. Layering a traditional marketing/PR strategy of "exclusives" (which favors someone special and closes someone else out) over the top of an open community is counterproductive.

You are quick to criticize, but you offer no solutions to problems you think we have -- yet you don't really state them. Are you sure Linux is eating our lunch? Do we get any credit at all for JDS/Linux? Or for selling Linux systems? Or for OpenOffice, which helps Linux? Or our contribuions to GNOME, which also helps Linux? Have you ever met Scott? What would you do if you were in his position? Ever run a $12 billion company with 32,000 employees? (Maybe you have, I don't know.) Why do you say we are giving Solaris away? What do you know about Solaris, anyway? Anything? (Maybe you do, I dont know ... I can't tell from your post ... if you do I apologize). We are open sourcing the system and building a community based on the Solaris market, not giving it away. Big difference. And, our customers are actually excited about it. I talk to them every day to bring them into the OpenSolaris Pilot Program.