SQLFusion blogs

An interesting post from Michael Mace about the death of native applications on the mobile market.

As an iPhone user and SAAS advocate I would agree with him, but I think the web application trend will continue only if mobile browsers change and allow a better integration with the mobile device itself.

Currently mobile web browsers work like desktop web browsers, that is, when you close the browser the web applications shutdowns and closes as well.

I want to see a Javascript API built-in webkit (Apple, Android and Nokia) that would allow access to core features of the phone like alerts, vibration, messaging, storage....
Then some javascript calls would tell the phone OS to allow the web application (web page) to run in the background even when the web browser application is closed.

If the web application can interact with the OS in a similar and standard way, then yes, web applications will put native applications to the bench.

MailFusion is a simple but efficient newsletter manager.
It's a product we created in 1999 to offer webmasters a simple way to add a newsletter to their web sites.

It has always been free and we are working to make sure it stays free.

Until yesterday it was a single opt-in, so when users were giving their email addresses they where automatically added to the list.
This was simple and made a lot of sense in 1999.

Since then spam has come along and the rules for mailing list management software is now double opt-in. So users subscribe to a news letter on a web site and then need to confirm their subscription by clicking on a link in the confirmation email sent to them.

In the past couple of months we detected a few MailFusion users that abused our single opt-in to load email addresses in their accounts and send spam.

We removed them and their addresses, but they keep coming back with new tricks, so we decided to implement the double opt-in to solve the problem once for all.

So from now on when emails are added to a MailFusion mailing list they will not be in the list until subscribers have confirm their registration.

With over 3,500,000 subscribers in over 4,000 mailing lists MailFusion as sent more than 100 millions emails since its creation including 30 million in 2007 alone.

We have always been spam free and now the double opt-in will ensure that it stays that way in the future.

For more information on MailFusion:
MailFusion product tour

To create an account:
Free registration to MailFusion

Login your account:
MailFusion Login

With virtualization technology and services like EC2 (aws.amazon.com) the cost of building clusters is going down.

In the past 3 months we have put serious R&D work to find a solution for startups and SMB that need very reliable hosting.

The concept is to get the 5 nines (99.999) availability for any web application at an affordable price.

A 99.999% availability would cost about $250,000 for a dozen servers, a solid storage array dual load balancers, software and a lot of hard work.

To handle high load pick additional servers are needed but most of the time unused increasing again the operating cost.

This can't work for a small business or a startup.

So we will offer for a monthly fee to do all the setup and maintenance work using Amazon EC2 and S3 platforms.

We will take our customers' web applications load them in a database cluster and a web server cluster.

This product is perfect for SME or SMB that needs (5 nines) %99.999 availability or a young startup waiting to take off.

If your interested contact us.

This is a big step for the Open Source business model.

MySQL was the first software company to make money with an Open Source application.
They have set the rules for building a business with Open Source software.

When we started partnering with MySQL in early 2002, I remember their US operation was an answering machine in an empty office.
Once the business model of giving away the Open Source version in GPL and charging a fee for any other licensing was set, a big sales force and marketing team was hired and MySQL took off in the business world.

This is what got the Venture Capitalists interested in Open Source. The model was working in terms of rapid growth and revenue.

It all started with the JBoss purchase and is continuing with the purchase of Troll tech by Nokia.

The Open Source startup's time is now gone and it's time for consolidation.

They are merging with the existing business model and making a place in the software and business world.

All this consolidation shows that the Open Source model is here to stay for good and has prevailed in reshaping the software industry.

Now lets hope that the MySQL purchase by Sun will not slow down its development and follow other Sun Open Source products to stagnation (Open Office, netbean...).
Probably this is also a turn for Sun where it will accelerate its open source development and community building.

Any case this is great news and it will open great opportunities for open source developers, projects and businesses.