Where we are and where we're going

This blog is one of my favorite as we release our new VoIPTelCaster PBX and also the upcoming release of Warrior (Pioneer Desktop 4) and Automatix3. Instead of doing Automatix3 for Warrior only we will be doing this with the release of Debian and Ubuntu also. If you've been following, you know that Automatix3 will be using PostgreSQL for the backend and TuxSoftware has partnered with us to get this out quickly and will be the front-end to Automatix3. If you're wondering what all this means, let me explain a bit more.

Automatix3 is now part of the Technalign family and TuxSoftware is joining us in the development of the application using the Alpha release as the front-end for the new Automatix3 application. There will not be another Automatix after Automatix3, since Automatix3 will be following a different development cycle. The back-end of the application will allow users to search for an application or solution to a problem with a question and be database driven. Technalign is attempting to solve many of the business problems that our partners are experiencing today. When a Technalign partner looks for a solution it's pretty much the same as community member looking, or a new Linux user exploring for an alternative to Windows, so Technalign is working with the community and it's business partners to come up with an open source solution that works for everyone; business, consumer and community in one shot.

Since Automatix3 is used as part of the search, a set of tools will be available to the developers of open and closed source applications. It's not meant to be a replacement or competitor of LaunchPad, but is meant to be a method for a developer to get an application out to the users and part of the Automatix3 installation. With TuxSoftware, delivery of needed applications and needed utilities and codecs will be provided immediately. This means that users will be allowed to find a replacement for Automatix2. We'll also be keeping the repositories up and running now for those needing Automatix2 for many of those that have requested it remain up and running. You'll see HIATLANTIS community edition in Automatix3 as we've promised to release an open source version of the application. You can see more of this on the http://www.technalign.org pages of course along with Automatix3 and other open source projects.

With the help of Kevin at TuxSoftware, Jared at Automatix3, our internal developers and myself we would like to say thank you for all the input (regardless if an attack or not) and assistance up to this point!

If you have any questions, or would like more information, please visit the Technalign pages at http://forums.technalign.org

I, as well as the admins and everyone in the communities would love to hear from all of you and what you would like to see us working on to improve our products.

New directions at Technalign using PostgreSQL with HIATLANTIS and VoIPTelCaster

As you may be aware, we've taken HITLANTIS off the market for awhile due to the fact that we've had issues with licensing MySQL. Although both HIATLANTIS and VoIPTelCaster are being open sourced, please visit http://www.technalign.org for more information, the issue comes into play with our commercial versions of the products. There are a few issues with releasing a product using the MySQL product along with upfront money required to do business with MySQL. Since these projects are uncertain in terms of volume we are not certain how many will be sold in the market. Using MySQL represents some issues for Technalign in terms of the upfront costs required by the company, around $20,000 is the start of negotiations with MySQL, and they seem to be willing to drop the pricing to $5,000 or $10,000 to begin a relationship. $10,000.00 is for support services, regardless if you need it or not and another $10,000 for a pre-purchase of licenses. Not wanting to pay these amounts, MySQL was more than happy to work with Technalign and take 7% of all sales of our products, plus a minimum investment of $5,000 or $10,000 (Why did I feel like I was buying a used car in these discussions?). This doesn't include the limitation of the number of trials that Technalign would be held to. There is more detail, but honestly, we believe that the costs could cause the products to be too high since Technalign sells to resellers, and the cost would have to be passed on to those resellers and bottom line to the end-user. We didn't even have a problem with just providing a flat rate, but that was unacceptable to MySQL.

This caused us to have an internal meeting to decide the best approach as we were already converting our HIATLANTIS application to PostgreSQL. My reason for calling MySQL was to see if there was a means in working together that would have been beneficial to both companies. Technalign, since Release 1.0 of Pioneer has been promoting MySQL and has included it as a default install on our servers (MigrationSERVER and Stagecoach). One thing that kept coming up was our smaller partners with a similar model to ours developing open source and commercial applications based on their open source products. This would have meant that those small developers (some working out of a basement or garage) would have to make these same commitments to MySQL and paying those upfront costs to MySQL. They are not much, but if a developer's application fails, that upfront money would be an issue to the developer. Great for MySQL, but bad for the company with additional loses.

In our meeting; Ron, Scott, Bryan, Jared and myself were discussing the alternatives. We've spoken to PostgreSQL in the past and placed any commitments on hold until we were able to figure out our next best steps. Some of the suggestions were that we move to Oracle or DB2. I felt that PostgreSQL offered an excellent solution and everyone did agree having used it “way back when” - including myself in the late 80s. We formed our decision based on our smaller and larger ISVS that use MigrationSERVER and Stagecoach who would be hurt by a MySQL decision.

What's next?

MigrationSERVER 3.1 and Stagecoach 3.1 will continue having MySQL as the default installation. As we move forward with our Warrior product (http://www.technalign.org/warrior.html) we've made a decision to move MySQL to the unsupported repositories and PostgreSQL to the default in MigrationSERVER 3.2 and Stagecoach 3.2 while testing with our Warrior Server. Technalign will support the PostgreSQL database technology via it's partner network and that of the community via forums and so on.

HIATLANTIS and VoIPTelCaster community editions will released with PostgreSQL with VoIPTelCaster being the first in the next several weeks. HIATLANTIS is being redeveloped and changed to be released to the community with a PostgreSQL database as well. The project pages and screenshots of the rerelease is already on the technalign.org pages. This, of course, is open source so anyone can make changes to utilize MySQL versus PostgreSQL as with VoIPTelCaster. As with all Technalign's open source projects requiring a database, Automatix 3 will also use the PostgreSQL data where required.

You'll find more PostgreSQL projects started and tools and utilities to compensate for the directional move in the future. We believe that providing the right tool for any project means a commitment in development and support. Technalign, and myself, is very proud to have made this decision and move into a direction that makes sense for Technalign, the community and our ISVS moving into this direction. It was a decision based on our requirements as well as those that we work with hand-in-hand.

If you have any questions, please feel free to use the comment area or the tapioneer forums.

About the new directions, you'll find Warrior getting built and Automatix 3 started

Many of us need something easy to use and something that is innovative yet what people have been asking for. When Automatix was first released it provided Ubuntu a method of simplicity that allowed users to use the system easily. Of course the “not invented here syndrome” was a big problem for Automatix since certain teams were upset that it wasn't under their control and ripping them apart instead of working closely with them. See my previous blog on Automatix for more information. The bottom line was that these people were dedicated hard working individuals who not only assisted Ubuntu in gaining popularity in those days, but also the ones that made Ubuntu easy to use by providing the tools that were lacking in a simple to use method that Windows users could use. Heck, even the New York Times thought it was a great tool that people should install on their systems. Enough about that, I've commented before on my thoughts and I'm just still amazed that people tear into them. We supported the project well over a year and I still believe that the over 2 million people that use it can't be wrong! Now comes Automatix 3, a completely new methodology for a package manager to be included in Warrior and later into Explorer and Basic. Of course since it's a community project, we will be providing it to other communities who would like to include it, much in the same way the Automatix team provided Automatix to others in the past. We've provided this now with three new repositories; Cowboy, Cowgirl and Wrangler working hand in hand with the folks at Automatix. These new repositories are available to other communities as well who can add them to their repository list in K/Ubuntu, Mint, MEPIS 6.5 and under and others.

Let me discuss Warrior some as it is a complete 180 from our past development efforts here at Technalign. We are moving rapidly to Warrior development now with the Automatix group heading up a lot of the efforts for us. Automatix has demonstrated something in the past that we haven't seen for quite sometime in Linux, the ability to assist a distribution with innovative concepts and implementation that people really wanted and needed. Warrior is no different in the sense that it not only is a deviation from Ubuntu, but a project that is meant to stay focused on the Debian innovations and creating a distribution that provides the greatest base today in Linux. We plan on augmenting what Debian has accomplished. Bringing longevity to the operating system is something we need to do, allowing users to continue for years with a stable and reliable platform that brings users to a new level of satisfaction (shoot, I need a cigarette now lol). We also plan on working very closely with Automatix, who in the past has demonstrated the sheer essence of innovation. I'm certain I'll be attacked for these comments, but the numbers themselves speak volumes of what they've accomplished in the past and what they will accomplish in the future!

Warrior, besides having Automatix 3 included, and as I spoke about previously includes a new set of repositories and direction using Debian. We plan on keeping the Debian base Debian without deviation. This means a pure distribution for the community and later the Explorer and Basic communities. We also need to standardize some of this, and there was an attempt previously that failed. I believe Xandros is still attempting this today, but I may be incorrect. One of the issues we are finding today with our partners is the need to have a set of standards for both hardware and software developers. Working with some software development companies, what we are finding is that these companies are having issues they have asked us to address. Some have not yet started to move their critical applications in vertical markets such as Medical and Legal applications waiting for the standards and a Linux distribution that follows the current path they run today in Windows. We're addressing these issues with them currently and the communities that wish to be involved. Nothing is mandatory, and the projects are completely open. You'll find this started on our org pages at www.technalign.org if you want more information.

We hope each of you join us on our next steps in making Warrior the optimal platform with Technalign and Automatix and I welcome each of you to share your thoughts and ideas with us so your voice is also heard and not shut down. No one is ripped into at Technalign and everyone is welcome to provide input or join in any efforts, including VoIP projects. Please feel free to visit our forums at http://www.tapioneer.org/forums/index.php and let your voice be heard!

Happenings at Technalign!

My latest blog is regarding the new happenings at Technalign and some new directions. The employees at Technalign have been asking that we open more of what we do to the community, including a new project called VoIPTelCaster. My first reaction was we needed to be closed source and add code to existing applications. I also thought, why would I give all this code away that cost the company to produce with programmers at Technalign. What I found was there were already people programming for free and other companies were doing it. I spoke to Mark Hinkel awhile ago and asked him why I should do this since I was confused. After a bit of time and groaning I decided that we should and we should also allow the community to be part of what we do, so with www.technalign.org we are now opening our projects, including Warrior, to the community with full access to development and input provided by them. The Automatix folks, as always have been more than helpful in getting things going and providing suggestions.

While in a meeting last week I had our support people hammering me to do something with community editions. Again my reaction in the meeting was less than pleasant when these guys were staring at me with the look of a hurt puppy or others like mad dogs. Why should I support a community Linux distro? I thought back to when my son first got me into Linux with those big blue eyes of his and that excitement when he said I should move HIATLANTIS to Linux. I then thought about how hard these guys work on distributions, kernels and everything else and that all my support people actually play with and use many different distributions. How else can we get companies and people to move to Linux unless they have actual support services they can purchase at a pretty good price. They were right, providing support for community editions was a good thing that would allow us to give back. If you're curious please visit the www.technalign.org site for more information. We're going to give 5% back to the distributions, but you should read the support pages on the .org site. We also have 3 new repositories thanks to Jared at Automatix called cowboy (free speech and free beer), cowgirl (Free speech and not free beer) and Wrangler the commercial repository. Again, Automatix helped and directed this effort as the start of Warrior!

While we were developing Electricity, one of our community guys said we were nuts and should just use Wine-Doors. Once again I didn't want to listen to dj in the forums and decided that we needed to do our own thing. In come the developers and support guys hammering me once again – almost like a daily routine here now. I contacted Karl over at Wine-Doors and what a great guy he is. He's one of those true Linux guys who just loves to do his thing! Well, Electricity is now powered by Wine-Doors and anything we do gets back to them and not kept to ourselves. We're also going to do the port to OS/X with their guidance and that of the Automatix guys. Yeah, we all have those MAC guys around, even at Technalign – right Steve you short-timer? Just joking! Anything that sells of Electricity with support, we're giving a spiff back to the guys at Wine-Doors.

All in all coming together as we get ready for our new office in Margate, FL! It's pretty cool, a bit warm actually, but cool that there is ready and able Linux people we can hire.

Just want to say thanks to everyone and here we go!

Just saying thank you to all the communities

We've been working on many different projects besides Pioneer Linux at Technalign including Electricity for Cross-Platform independence and also VoIPTelCaster that allows companies to work with an enterprise grade IP Phone system at a very low cost. I've been doing this blog for a short time now and I like writing it as I hope you enjoy reading it. As we move into a new year and coming up on our 6th year in the industry, I wanted to discuss our community and how it's the same but different than most of the other Linux distributions such as MEPIS or PCLinuxOS and say thank you. We're actually starting to see the community outside of our business community/Partner Network becoming involved, and we're also seeing an increase of popularity of Pioneer in countries such as El Salvador, Finland, Italy, Germany, Pakistan and the list goes on. We're finding that communities are growing within Technalign itself as people learning C, C++, Python and others are starting to build projects for the community and not commercial applications for Pioneer. You're each welcomed to become involved in those projects also.

At Technalign we have sales, support, development and marketing departments to name a few just like most companies. We have extensions now of Technalign many of you may not be aware of including a growing partner network outside of Technalign, but part of our family none-the-less. We've found that our partners from regular partners, silver partners and solution providers are becoming critical to our success and providing valuable input. We even have some partners sending us old PIII and P4 systems and laptops so we can continue to test and support the older “stuff” out there. Some of these systems go to employees to test and learn on while others are simply for testing. We're considering setting up a distribution center for people with lower incomes located in the communities we reside in so they can use the equipment for learning Linux and expanding the skills they have today. Who knows, maybe someday even becoming a Technalign employee or getting a better position elsewhere.

The one thing that is most notable now is the involvement from members in the community that was not there previously including many people assisting in the testing and validation of our products. I have also tried to be heavily involved with he forums, and Steve Kaufman will be coming on soon to be a liaison between all communities and Technalign. This is where I'd like to give many many thanks to each and everyone of you providing assistance when you use and test new releases. I haven't felt this good about Technalign since we left New Jersey and moved into other directions such as Pioneer. One reason we moved from Explorer to Warrior for our short lifecycle product was many of you wanted more than of a lifecycle than 6 months to a year so Explorer now sports a 3-year lifecycle and has been replaced with Warrior as our initial test bed. Not everyone wanted support or a boxed product, so we've been learning as we go along. The biggest learning curve came with Explorer and what people expect from us in the communities.

I've opened up our Technalign Intranet site for each of you also, you can find this at http://intranet.technalign.net. This site provides information on Technalign, clubs, benefits and open positions. We'll be working with the Wyoming Workforce here and other groups, including the Laramie Economic Development group (LEDC) so everyone can find positions in Wyoming and it will be available to all of you considering a better lifestyle and career. Wyoming is a beautiful state, and each of you have the opportunity to move here and create a better life for you and your families. I'm loving every minute of coming into the office everyday now, and I'll admit it's nothing like what we experienced in Delta, Colorado with DADI on the Western Slope where people were downright hostile to us for being a Linux company and didn't understand what we did or do. Technalign is now in an area that allows us to start growing and providing even more back to the communities.

It's only a thank you to each of you in the communities I know and not much meat in the blog this time, but all I can say is thank you.

Electricity cross-platform tool for Linux and Apple OS/X

This blog entry is about our new Electricity product we are releasing and why. Electricity is a replacement for CodeWeavers' CrossOver at a lower cost with the same functions of the Professional version. We believe part of our success is providing cross-platform independence and needed a replacement for the application. We are releasing Electricity since CodeWeavers has ended our business relationship. We have actually been working with them for quite some time, since around 2003 or 2004 I believe. I also believe that both companies wish each other the best, as I truly do them, and much success in the future.

We will be releasing our Electricity version for Linux initially and MAC OS/X on Intel within the next 45 days, although our lead is telling me sooner – I always like to play it safe. We've had a lot of comments from our Partners asking that we provide it free of charge with the Basic, and Stagecoach versions of our operating system and believe we will now provide it as part of the Basic and Stagecoach systems with no additional cost. Our price point is only $19.99 for the application, which we believe will allow all Linux and OS/X to have the product at a very low cost.

Technalign's mission is to provide a total solution to consumers and business and has been our model since we started in March of 2002. Electricity now represents the solution that we needed to fill the gap from CodeWeavers, and we believe we will improve the product and the product will also continue to improve. The dev team is also working on providing better gaming support to the community, and that was something we had asked about for quite some time from CodeWeavers. The first release, of course, will be basic as listed on the Electricity pages, but as updates continue, we will start pushing these out to the users.

Of course, our first 100 beta testers will get a free serial number for updates to Electricity. If you haven't placed your hat in the ring for the beta, there is a form available to you to get on that beta list and the beta list server. The forums are a great place to add your comments, or what you would like to see in Electricity for both Linux and Mac OS/X.

In order to let as many people have Electricity as possible, it will also be available on LinSpire's CNR when released. I believe LinSpire's CNR will be a big leap for companies and individuals running Linux. We also include CNR's client on Pioneer Explorer and Renegade, our community distributions. At the low-cost of Electricity, there shouldn't be any reason not move to the Linux operating system or for that matter OS/X on Mac.

I just want to thank everyone who uses Pioneer, and I hope each of you will work with us, even if it's to let us know what we're missing, to make Pioneer, Electricity, and any products we work on better.

Why Nero on Linux?

As you may know, Technalign markets and works with the Windows community and we also work with the Linux communities via releases such as Pioneer Explorer. When we review communities there are different means in which a company or group of individuals release products such as MEPIS and others geared towards a specific, or targeted group, of people. Each release is imperative to a group of individuals and provides different functions and tasks aimed to the target audience. That's actually the beauty of Linux! For example, Automatix provides solutions to users in the Debian, K/Ubuntu, and MEPIS communities. It's really a needed product regardless of attacks from the developers in those communities.

When Technalign supported Automatix, it was apparent that many of the developers of the other communities have not provided the needed input to Automatix developers and then tore into them instead of offering assistance (see my previous blog entry). When LinSpire, as another example, came out with CNR (Click and Run) the same communities attacked LinSpire and FreeSpire for working with Microsoft as the enemy. When you look at companies or communities attempting to provide a service or product that meets the needs of any group of people you really need to understand what they are doing and why. When LinSpire works with Microsoft, it helps users have a better experience with products they use.

Technalign looks for solutions that meet the needs of companies and consumers to help fill the gap between a transition from Windows. Nero fills the gap with a tool 80% of the Windows users today are familiar with and use. One of the things that assists any user is a familiarity of a product or known commodity. Providing users an easy path to Linux is not a simple task since people have been using the Windows Operating Systems for many many years. This is one reason we've incorporated a “Programs Folder” with our product instead of Automatix or another tool at this time. Since we are now working with more Windows users, our demographic is different than, lets say MEPIS or PCLiunxOS.

I've already received emails and complaints that we are now working with companies that hurt Linux after Technalign placed Nero on our pages only 1 day ago. I still don't understand how providing a utility that assists any user transitioning from Windows and fits a demand is a problem? It's just like asking how can Automatix that fits the needs of millions of people hurting a distribution? When a product such as Automatix meets the needs and fills a gap that assists a community, the communities should work together. I understand that Automatix caused some system problems, but why aren't the community members helping them instead of attacking them? In the case of Nero, K3b is a great application, but now Linux users and Windows users transitioning have the same Blue Laser technology on the Linux platforms and a utility they know how to use on Linux.

Bringing more and more applications that are running on Windows does assist users in the transition from Windows to Linux, either in business or the consumer areas. The more the better, and I believe that when more Windows applications and utility companies start moving more applications, we'll start to see more individuals and companies moving from Windows to Linux. Isn't that the goal; to assist any user from any community coming to Linux with some Linux variant?