What are we building?
Many people that we talk to are asking us about what we'll be building, and selling. Though we're fans of open source, and of working as openly as we can, we do have a few things that need to stay under wraps until they're fully baked. But since people keep asking, I want to offer some "spirit of what we're doing" as a temporary substitute.
The key takeaway comes from what we've already said it in the FAQ - that we intend to add to Drupal as much as we can in order to grow it's use by orders of magnitude. And in parallel we'll build up an infrastructure of software and services around Drupal that makes building and operating Drupal websites better and easier.
The best description of the principles of how I think about our company, and what we want to build, are expressed by Alfresco's Matt Asay in his 23 December (08) blog post. The operative sentences are:
The more people using one's code, the better the opportunities to develop complements to that code for which users will happily pay. Far too many open-source companies/entrepreneurs (including myself, much of the time) overlook this fact and fixate on monetizing their code, when the truly disruptive move is to monetize complements to that code.
A couple of things come to my mind as I consider that quote:
- Matt says "... people using one's code...." "One's" is a gender-neutral first person possessive pronoun, and reflects the fundamental difference between Acquia and other open source software product companies. Matt's struggles with monetizing his code arises because Alfresco built most of their code and community, and fully control what happens to it. In contrast, Drupal already exists, and we don't control it any more than you, the reader of this blog post, do. For us, the temptation to "monetize Drupal" simply doesn't - and can't - arise.
- I'm totally bought in on the disruption. Our job at Acquia is to identify and provide as many complements to Drupal as we can, so that its use grows wildly. Though we still aren't saying much about the specifics of what those complements are, this sentiment is clearly the best way for people to imagine what we're working on.
And given the type of technology Drupal is, I think there is a long list of complements that we can provide for a long time to come.
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2010 has been an inflection point for the Acquia partner program. We are doing more business than ever with partners, including case studies with Palantir.net, Blink Reaction, and IBM Global Services.
Bryan House
It is that phase of my life! I'm just turning 30 in a month, working with Drupal for 7 years and just had my third Acquia anniversary a week ago. Time to look back and evaluate how things went, all the good and bad things; even better if the wisdom can be shared with others. This was part of my thinking when I submitted the session titled "Come for the software, stay for the community" for Drupalcon Copenhagen.
Gábor Hojtsy
It sounded like a really simple request: "Is it easy to add a search filter for 'My posts'?". In other words, add a search result facet for posts by the current (logged in) user through the Apache Solr Search Integration module APIs?
But then the wheels start turning - we want not just one blind link, but a real facet link that tells us how many results we'll get. Also, if we are filtering by 'My posts' then we probably have an equal use case for the opposite filter 'Posts not by me'. So we really need a facet block with two links and facets counts.
Peter Wolanin
Comments
First of, congratulations to
First of, congratulations to all involved with Acquia - I think we're all very excited to see what happens (even if we do have a few concerns as well.. which is only expected).
It would be great if you can be a little more specific about what you are going to do, and offer. It would help many of us in our own decision making process as to whether Drupal is for us or not.
One thing I hope Acquia will offer is an affordable support solution, very much like what you get when you say purchase vBulletin or invision board - it is the one thing that professional outlets will require if they are to use Drupal (without of course having to spend thousands on paying a seperate team). I also think it would greatly help get that 10 fold increase you guys have been talking about.
Again, good luck to you all - and hope to see more details about what you'll actually be doing soon.
*headscratch* That's a whole
*headscratch* That's a whole lot of words to tell us nothing y'all haven't already told us. The only "spirit of what we're doing" I get out of that is "posting seven paragraphs to say what we said elsewhere in one sentence".
That, plus mindless business buzzwords like "key takeaway", don't make me feel like Acquia is any different from your average corporation. But then, Jay is The Business Guy, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Dries does own at least 51% of Acquia, right?
Thanks, Jay. @Lanny - you
Thanks, Jay.
@Lanny - you have to interpret a bit and yes, this is largely restating what's in the FAQ, but the point is this: increasing the size of the community, provide supplementary services. It's a timely and useful re-focusing based on their earlier messages.
There is something you can
There is something you can share with us though :) What are you using to base your 'orders of magnitude' projections off?
I've been holding out for an answer at http://groups.drupal.org/node/7831.
Happy 'baking', and looking forward to generous helpings of data/information/Drupal stats :)
Well, I guess Jay's first
Well, I guess Jay's first paragraph is most important: things are still in the oven, and not edible yet. This is politics. I wonder how long Dries kept the Acquia thing in the oven successfully. Wild speculations would arise if things get out too soon. So Jay: but it has to be something when it comes out ;)
I second Brook on the Drupal helpline: This would definitely be something of enourmous value. Only thing I doubt is whether people with sufficient knowledge to do the job would bother sitting down by the phone for surely much lower pay than doing Drupal implementation.
But some kind of network could be worked out: Skype enables us to do a global time schedule. And making a few bucks for being available for five hours on monday might be an option thinkable for many of us...
Well, I read your posts on
Well, I read your posts on acquia like a thousand times. I wish you luck, but I can't see how you will earn your money. If I got this right, your complements will also be open source - so where is the money?
But I won't be impatient - I just wait and see...
And I hope all the best for you and Drupal!
Just a little comment to
Just a little comment to Matt : One is a third person pronoun determiner with a pronoun, not a first person posessive pronoun.
Try to replace "one's" by a noun and you'll see that it can't be a pronoun(that's the etymology of the word "pronoun").
See here
and
And there.
I just wanted to precise this fact, and that's all ! Grammar is only important when we talk about grammar, isn't it ?
And by the way, good luck with your company and keep the good spirit !
Ed Reel
I've heard it once said that
I've heard it once said that you should find your passion and do what you love and the money will come naturally. I believe this and Dries is a prime example of someone who has traveled down that path.