In order to get people to work together, it makes sense to have some form of collaboration tools (groupware) available. There are plenty of websites out there, but, well, we do a lot of proprietary development and we want to keep everything on our servers. The search for the right groupware was on. It had to be free (as in freedom, not as in free beer), should use the LAMP environment and offer file exchange, sharable calendar and maybe email.

While there are a lot of different groupware environments out there, they are all either no longer maintained, or are buggy beyond recognition or simply to weird and complicated to install.

Here is what we tried so far:

phpGroupware: I didn't like the Windows 3.1 Look&Feel but I gave it a try anyway. Installation was bumpy but doable. It wants this password for administration and that password for header-administration, another one for users and finally locked me out because I forgot which password for what and I tried too many times. As there is no easy way reset the counter (and I didn't want to wait 30 minutes) - I gave up.

Horde-Groupware: I had great hopes for this environment. Again - installation was complicated but manageable. However, after about 2 hours it ended with a PHP-error telling me that it wasn't able to get enough memory space from our servers. We have quite a few good PHP people but they were unable to trace the reason for this error. Since we didn't have the time to "patch" it, we went on to try a different solution.

TuTos: Tutos wasn't too hard to install, but they want the apache-config changed. While we are not on shared servers we would have been able to do so, but we like our apache config as it is and we believe NO php environment should require any changes to the standard apache web configuration. So - we tossed it out as well.

eyOS: The easiest environment to install, but not really a "groupware" solution. It also requires additional php modules which aren't available for all Linux flavors. It also needs quite some Internet bandwidth to be workable, which might not be available in all environments or on mobile devices. Nice - but no cigar.

php-calendar: What a mess. How is it possible to write a simple application like a calendar and manage to produce a variety of missing includes or database-errors? I start to believe that people should FIRST learn the C-programming language before they are allowed to use PHP ....

We tried a few more (see: www.codango.com/php/dir/webapps/collabor/) but some crapped out with PHP or Javascript errors and/or were no longer maintained or impossible complicated to install.

All in all we pretty much lost a day. Now - developing a calendar or file sharing tool is no rocket science. I am sure the developers and maintainers had a lot of work with their projects. But they lost KISS (keep it simple, stupid) in the process and ended up with some unmanageable complex structure.

We might have to develop our own solution now. We will make it available here as soon as we have something to show.

As usual .. just my two cents.

Michaela

Hello everybody. Today's topic is quite a flasher: How to get rich in 20 days. That, it seems to me, was the idea of a young entrepreneur who contacted me through a mutual friend.

As you may or may not know, I am helping startup-companies with know-how, contacts, advise and, sometimes, even cash. I am receiving several requests a month, mostly pretty boring stuff. Not that boring stuff wouldn't sell, but, well, who needs the third "Twitter" copy or another "Facebook" lookalike.

The idea of a business, as I understand it, is to make money. It's simply not enough to have a great idea, a vision, without a concrete business foundation. And no, selling ads is not what I would call a strong business proposition. It's me too - and a proven concept only for failure.

So - what am I looking for in a venture? The fundamentals have to be realistic. Whenever I see a business plan suggesting revenues in the vicinity of 100$/user and year, I am getting nervous. Don't get me wrong. There are a few services out there that have managed to get that much money from users. But "community" websites or browser gaming systems will most certainly not cut it. If your business case predicts a nice cash flow with, say, 3$/user and year, you've got my attention.

What's the next important fact? Data security and privacy. I have developed a system called "PURE" - or "Protected User Record Environment" - which is currently being deployed, among other sytems, in a Human Resources environment. PURE encrypts and protects all of the users private data against unauthorized access - even the system administrators are not able to circumvent the technology. Why is that important? Because people are starting to take care of their data. They want their data to be protected. Authorities are beginning to take notice and sooner or later, laws will be handed down to the online-sites forcing them to abandon their profiling methods and, in some case, their businesses. If your business plan relies on detailed user records (i.e. for advertising, to sell or lease out), you most certainly haven't got the feeling for tomorrows markets.

Also important are the team, the vision, the USP and the sustainability of the business idea. It's not easy to create a good product on todays Internet. But, I am sure, there are quite a few hotties out there.

Back to my "make money fast friend". He had an idea about a browser game. His papers (it wasn't anything one could call business plan) suggested an ROI of a stunning 5000 percent in two years. WhooHoo.

"Just give me a 100,000$ and I will lauch a product that not only makes you filthy rich, but also helps mankind"

... or so was his argument. He obviously hadn't done any market research (a similar game was available on three! different websites), he wasn't able to predict the costs of hosting his envisioned 2 Million gamers, all in all he just had a dream and was looking for somebody stupid enough to pay money for it.

Now - I want people to get filthy rich. I will do anything in my powers to help entrepreneurs to get into and to survive in today's tough markets. But please: Do your homework first.

Just needed to blow some steam ..

Michaela