Why PIM’s Are So Compelling?

Reporters, venture capitalists, and users are always looking for the next “Killer App,” that mythical universally compelling application that all on its own can create a new marketplace. Killer apps can and do appear, but only rarely and they are usually recognized only by Monday Morning Quarterbacks, long after they have created their markets. 

Occasionally, however, it’s possible to feel that instinctive quiver at the back of my neck that tells me that something might be going on.  I’ve noted it before – a few times – so I’ve learned to trust it.

Recently, the quiver has been sending me two related messages.

1. We may be in the beginning stages of reinventing office software.  That is, we may be redefining what we do and, therefore, what kinds of tools we’d like to have to help us. 

I see that from several points of view:  from user surveys we’ve done that seem to reflect changing patterns of usage; from new kinds of software entering or preparing to enter the marketplace; and from new platforms that are being used (or could be used) for this new kind of “office” work.

That’s a very big topic and we’ll save writing about it for another day – probably many other days.

2. One of the areas of office work that needs a new or better approach is how we handle personal information management.  That might mean address books and calendars or it might mean something broader that also includes the information we accumulate in our personal databases and the people we contact as we go about our daily work,

So it is with some interest that I’ve noted two unrelated but sure to overlap developments:  Mitch Kapor decided to go public with his open source software project, Chandler, and the former Napster folks surfaced their viral PIM Plaxo.

OSAF and Chandler

It’s no news to anyone that investment in personal software by venture capitalists has all but vanished, a victim of the Dot Com Bubble.  That has meant that good ideas have had to be delayed or find creative ways to fund their development.  Usually this means maxing out your credit cards and prevailing on your friends, your family, and your mortgage broker.

Mitch Kapor has other options.  Having already succeeded beyond most developers’ dreams as the inventor of 1-2-3 and founder of Lotus, he could afford to start a software company himself.  Being Mitch, it’s a different kind of company.

His $5 million is going to fund a non-profit open source development group, Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF).  If you like what he’s doing, OSAF accepts donations.

Together with some other famous software pioneers, Mitch has decided to tackle the problem of building a very serious yet completely approachable application for users who live in their email and calendar applications (that’s me and probably you, too). 

While Kapor is after building a shippable application, not a platform, he wants to exploit the open source model.  That means using a modular approach.  He’s assuming that the product doesn’t have to satisfy everyone, because the open source movement will add, via plug-ins and other modifications, whatever features and functions it believes users want and need.  

Code-named Chandler, the initial product, which could be available by the end of 2003, is not aimed at big enterprises in its first release; Kapor believes they have unique requirements that aren’t of interest to anyone else (think compatibility with legacy applications and scalability for very large numbers of users).  An enterprise product would also need administrative and management tools and the marketing and support of an enterprise software company.  Of course, all that could come later – or an OSAF licensee could decide to modify product and build Marketechtures for the enterprise market.

OSAF doesn’t intend to charge developers or users royalties for Chandler unless they choose not to stick to the open source model and redistribute their own source code.  In that case, they’d be expected to contribute funds, in the form of licensing fees, (instead of code) to the OSAF community.  Kapor would expect such licenses to be affordable, but “everything about licensing is speculative in any case,” he noted.  Kapor would prefer that small-scale commercial usage be self-service and perhaps free (again, this is all still to be determined).

Impatient?

If you’re impatient to see what OSAF and Kapor are up to you don’t have long to wait.  Although he expects the code to be “very incomplete,” the plan is to put out whatever’s there at year-end so people can experiment with it.

The idea is to build two clients, a PC client for Linux, Mac, and Windows and a Web or PDA client with a peer-2-peer or Linux Server back-end.  Presumably, someone else would provide the hosting service. Clients would preserve the look and feel of their native platform, with a conventional three-pane display interface to start to ease migration.  But Kapor has some new UI ideas that will no doubt show up eventually.  In any case, count on the product to use lots of web-like navigation, including a back-button, screen URLs, and so forth.

When the real product ships is about a year, it will be the usual open source joint effort (exactly how, still to be determined), with support coming from somewhere other than OSAF.

While OSAF is starting with an email/calendar/contact application, it doesn’t plan to stop there.  It has ambitious plans to expand out into other related spaces, including collaboration, workflow, and brainstorming, building these other functions incrementally on top of the original base function.

Now that OSAF has surfaced, there will be lots of interest – and pressure – to see if someone who succeeded fabulously in the past can come up with one more great product.  We’d settle for one that is genuinely useful.

Early Warning:  There Is A Plaxo Coming To Your Desktop         

Napster co-founder Sean Parker has surfaced with a new business, again with a viral marketing model – and no visible business model at all.

The company intends to offer a web server-backed service to automatically send messages to update the contacts in your address book.  It hopes that recipients of the update messages will be sufficiently intrigued by the request (or annoyed by the quantity of them) that they will sign up to Plaxo their own address books, automating the process.

The current Beta version is available for a free download, and the web service (which allows you to access and update your Outlook address book from anywhere) is also free, at least for now.  Every Plaxo update carries an invitation to join the fun and click access to the download site.

Now here’s the rub.  The Mountain View, California company, according to Wired magazine, has raised $2 million in capital, so we have to assume they convinced someone they could make money.  But they won’t tell anyone what the business model is.  In fact, in reply to our query, they were irritatingly coy.

As we wrote Plaxo:

“I have a firm policy of not accepting as an explanation "Try the product, we'll tell you how we'll make money later." 

Under those circumstances, my skeptical analyst personality always emerges and insists that I remind readers to be careful about trying products that need to be coy since their real business model might include some nasty surprise like a hidden agreement to share their computer (it's happened), an unknowing agreement to provide information on where they go on the net (ditto), or a future partnership or bill that they will have to accept after they've been "hooked" on the product.  I would consider any of those outcomes entirely unacceptable -- and so, I would think, would most users.

I would have thought that Plaxo, given its relationship to the Napster founders, would have wanted to be especially careful to steer clear of these sorts of shenanigans.”

Plaxo has denied that it will make money via adware or spyware, but it has otherwise refused to explain its business model.  I remain unconvinced.

But form your own opinion.  They’re at www.plaxo.com.  

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