Save the Dates - Upcoming Eclipse Membership Meetings

As the summer holiday season winds down it's time to start planning fall schedules in earnest. Therefore, I wanted to make sure we got on people's calendars ASAP! The membership was pretty clear that these meetings are important but we need to try to line them up with other activities to make travel justification easier - so we've worked hard to that end. Read on!

We're holding an Eclipse New Member Jumpstart and Membership Meeting on Monday, October 27^th in Reston VA. These meetings are conveniently located at the same venue and just prior to EclipseWorld 2008. If you’re going to EclipseWorld, definitely plan on arriving early to attend these meetings for an opportunity to keep ahead of all the happenings in our Ecosystem. And if you're looking for more justification to your Management to go to EclipseWorld, let them know you plan to attend the Members Meeting just prior.

Also, we will be holding our first ever Members Meting and Jumpstart in Europe on November 17^th in Ludwigsburg, Germany. These meetings are conveniently located at the same venue and just prior to Eclipse Summit Europe. I hope we have a really strong turn out and strong involvement so we can make this an annual meeting. Given all the new members coming from Europe, I have no doubts it will be. Again, the correlation with ESE will hopefully help justify the trip and vice versa.

Full details on agenda, participation and how to RSVP for the Members Meeting will be emailed later in September.

- Don

Comparing "Global Wine Wars" to the Embedded and Mobile space

One of my favorite MBA case studies was "Global Wine Wars: New World Challenges Old" (don't be cheap, spend the $6.95 and read it...). The key point from the case is that to compete against France's dominance in the wine industry, Australia et al repositioned the mindset of wine buyers from region to grape variety. No longer do people go into a liquor store to buy a Bordeaux, they go in to buy a Merlot. You don't go in looking for something nice from Burgundy, you go in looking for a nice Chardonnay. And for a couple of decades now France has been spanked repeatedly in the global markets for wine.

Is something similar going on in the Embedded and Mobile spaces? Is there a slow repositioning happening in purchasing behavior from "region" (the hardware - "iPhone" vs "BlackBerry" vs "Motorazr" vs "Nokia Nxx") to "grape variety" (the software stack - "Symbian Foundation", "Android", ....)?

- Don

A Great Scholarship Opportunity For Eclipse Ecosystem Research

Lots of great companies in the Ottawa area have spun out of the hard work and entrepreneurship of Carleton University. OTI and The Object People are just two that come to mind (both organizations ultimately fostered the teams that built a lot of the Eclipse Platform and EclipseLink respectively).

Carleton's "Technology Innovation Management" masters program (TIM) is fantastic - over the last few years we've worked with a number of students and faculty in this program, and have learned a lot from their research. Lots of great stuff on ecosystems, open source business models, collaboration models, intellectual property models and so on.

Here is the good news - the TIM program has a number of scholarships available starting as early as this fall -- and you can do this while continuing your current job. A great way to earn a Masters Degree while diving deeper into the dynamics behind Eclipse. A great career boosting opportunity.

If I didn't have two Masters degrees already, I'd be all over this :) If you're at all interested, please check out more about the program and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

- Don