Open Source Rocks!
So right after JavaOne I had to go to DC to do a sales call (ok stuff) and right after that I went to New York (cool stuff). It was my first time to do the tourist thing in NYC. It was really fun my super Mom came out to watch our kids so Sarah and I could go and 'live it up' :-).
While there I had the great pleasure of spending some time with Mike Milinkovich of Eclipse and Mike Talyor from Instations doing a webcast. They just released a new product RCP Developer and we spent some time talking about that and the advantages of the RCP.
The RCP talk was cool but the thing that really impressed me is what Mike Taylor had to say about the open source value that they got from moving to Eclipse. Before Eclipse they had IBM's ear and some inside info on the products that became Eclipse, which of course gave them a great competitive advantage. However he sees the space they have to play in in the Eclipse space as so much better than the competitive advantage they got from being part of IBM's preferred partner program. I love that! The bit I'm talking about is a short bit after the first break so hang in there. He then does a bang up job of explaining why Open Source works so well for IT shops. Mike M then gives a action call to IT shops to start to contribute back to open source (and of course specifically to Eclipse).
