Progressing towards enterprise release
Things are moving ahead steadily towards Spicebird Beta 0.7. We will have all the features listed in our Roadmap, except basic email tabs. We had to shift email tabs to the next version to ensure we can work on more stable tabs implementation. We are planning to release 0.7 by mid of June, 2008. The deadlines are as usual tight and require us to spend marathon hours at work. Though that can be an excuse for not many updates from us, we will try to keep posting as & when we have some time.
Two more people are going to join us by the end of May. One of them will work on the collaboration server software which will provide a simple administration interface to install/configure/maintain the servers for Mail, Calendar, Instant Messaging and CMS. The ground work for single-sign-on (SSO) to work with all the servers is completed. With this, Spicebird will be able to access all the applications seamlessly without having to authenticate to each server seperately. The focus is now on implementing an intuitive simplistic UI for administration of the servers, including backup, archiving & clustering.
The other person will work on the web client. By the time we do the enterprise release, we are planning to provide e-mail, addressbook & calendaring access to the collaboration servers through this web client.
We are hiring interns also. They will work on small modules of the above components. We see internships as a good opportunity for both us and the interns as we get to gauge the candidate's abilities and they get to know the work environment, which is very important in case of a startup. There is a huge difference between working with a startup and an established company. Past few days I have been discussing about this with lot of people. I tried to gather the views and put them here.
Comments
release date for .7
do you have a date for .7 release?
A PIM system is not a jetpack
[nod to Dan Wilson]
PIM systems have (or should have) moved beyond the Exchange model by now. IMO, a PIM system should comprise a number of small, focused modules that integrate strongly with one another via open standards. The PIM system is then simply the framework and unified UI for these modules.
I hope that is where this promising project is heading. When Exchange Server was in its inception (mid 90s), I doubt that anyone at Microsoft even envisioned the concept of personal or shared wikis as an information management tool. Consequently, the monolithic nature of Outlook, in its noble attempt as the be-all-and-end-all of PIM systems, makes the adaptation of such unanticipated technologies difficult.
If today one lists all of the technologies/features for which a PIM system should be the umbrella—e-mail client, calendaring system, address book, etc.—I'm willing to bet that in ten years one or two of those wouldn't make the same list and a few others probably would. Our notion of how to manage personal and shared information evolves over time, and so too should the system that enables us to do so.
Additionally, I hope that Spicebird will also veer away from the notion of "centralized server". Think Mercurial versus Subversion. Certain information should be easily pulled (and versioned). If I don't need a central server to share music, I shouldn't need a central server to share my public contact information.
That said, I think that you've been doing a great job in the early work, and I look forward to the enterprise release, which I hope will have support for Mac OS X. Until then I am limited to using it on Linux via a Parallels VM, which is less convenient and consequently defeats (at least to a degree) the intentions of a PIM.
Great Job
Hi folks,
you are doing a great job there.
That applet stuff really blew me away to smithereens.
Keep up the good work.
One feature you could consider is task that triggers an action on the set date ( an alarm, a pop-up or a sort of a reminder).
Someone was mentioning money. Yes need it to fight the big brother but then you made a beginning right.
Ask and ye shall get support!
Spicebird lighter then Seamonkey, Mozilla and of course OLx
Why did you name it Spicebird anyway?
Future releases
Great work so far! If everything you were planning to implement will be implemented, spicebird will become even more attractive for the worlwide community. However, one big issue for me personnaly remains: Will PocketPC/PDA sychronization be implemented? This would be mandatory for me allowing me to complete abandon Outlook....
Sincerely
Philip
OS X Support in 0.7?
I've read elsewhere on your site that support for OS X was planned for "the next release". Is this going to be the case with 0.7?
I'd certainly look at migrating from normal Thunderbird on my Mac to Spicebird if support for OS X became available.
Cheers, and keep up the good work.
OS X build
Unfortunately, Spicebird 0.7 will not have support for OS X yet.
As Spicebird is based on mozilla framework, the effort in building an OS X version will be a little more than building it on a Mac. We will have to address this resource issue after we are done with the 0.7 release.
Thanks!
Release delayed?
"We are planning to release 0.7 by mid of June, 2008."
Should be coming any day now? Or did you delay it?
PS: Thanks for the best email-calender-tool (didn't want to use then more often than not misinterpreted word PIM) out there!
Hmm.. yeah
Unfortunately, the release is going to take longer than we anticipated. We will make an announcement shortly about this.
Hi siva , Nice to know about
Hi siva ,
Nice to know about your works . I did download the Spicebird .. nice cool app in fact . But I am trying to think of the "revenue" .. Where is the money ??
In enterprises the big brother's Outlook takes a major share .. n IBM's LotusNotes . If someone would want to shift from the standard to new I personally feel it would be pretty diffcult .. But ya i liked the concept of plugging in applets to your client . I was wondering what things i would love to have on the front page ..I should congratulate you people for addressing the problem very well . Possibly it could acts like a "Google Desktop" on to the mail client ..
But I wonder how you plan to generate money if u give out the sw for free ?If the tradition opesource philosophy is to be followed .. and you to offer services .. I have my doubts about it .
But I can easily see a possibility when the
1>social netowrks move into the mailclient ... Possibly i can prepare some ppt collaboratively (without me being needed to send over emails ) n lot more
2> Organisations building small and rich interfaces to get their process done .. For eg possibly insted of me visting some site / filling up some XL sheet .. some applet can be there in the mailclient which provides interface for user to enter details .
Great work guys ... Keep it going ..
Satish TJ
(satishtj@gmail.com)
Thanks
Hi Satish
Thanks for your feedback. Social Networks is something we have planned, but not for 1.0.
About the money, yes, support is a source of revenue. But, the other part we are looking at is the customization. The collaboration client can hook up to a myriad softwares at an enterprise, similar to what you described for filling up some spreadsheet. This opens up the scope of customization to simplify work and increase productivity.
Apart from the client, we are creating an entire solution for collaboration at enterprises, which will be our source of revenue.
mac version
Where's the version for mac? will it work with Zimbra Collaboration Suite?