Post on 07-Oct-2020
CloudStack – Never heard of it! Giles Sirett
CEO, ShapeBlue
Giles.sirett@shapeblue.com
Twitter: @ShapeBlue
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
10:30-11:05
Giles Sirett: the challenges we face in terms of awareness & market perception
11:05 – 11:40
Mark Hinkle: opportunities for better promoting Apache CloudStack to improve awareness and to reduce friction due to lack of brand awareness
11:40 – 12:15
Aaron Delp & Ken Hui: ways to get started in Social Media including Twitter, Blogging, Podcasting, and Video Creation (The Social Media Pyramid) as tools for both personal and community involvement
Our own “mini – track”
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
CEO of ShapeBlue
Been working with ACS since late 2011
PMC member & Committer Apache CloudStack
Chairman – European CloudStack user group
Declaration: I’m a business guy
Also: Physicist, ex-programmer, husband, runner, Dad, rugby coach
About Me
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
My Qualifications for this subject
Weaknesses Being focused on a single technology as an expert can be a good differentiator, but also means the target market is considerably smaller.
Threats Much of the company's success depends on CloudStack's success. If OpenStack takes off as much as its participants hope, will CloudStack be less relevant?
451 Research, Feb 2014
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
“CloudStack – Never heard of it!” Architect at unnamed company that now runs a 200 host production ACS environment
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
So we have a perception problem then
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
The good news first
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Apache CloudStack is
great software “We could see
CloudStack was a game changer”
John Gillam, CTO, BT Cloud
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CloudStack Users
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CloudStack Users 2.0
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CloudStack Users 3.0
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200+ active contributors, 7o+ organisations Now 72 86 committers
Our Community is great
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Our community is driven by users
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So, what’s the problem then ?
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________ ___ is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain
reaction.
Critical Mass
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This is an asymmetric situation
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Cloud
OpenStack
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Our main defence play
We are production ready, we’re easy to install. That
other thing you’re considering isn’t
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So, onto the problems that we CAN control
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Don’t shoot Don’t shoot the
messenger
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Problem #1
We do NOT engage customers well
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
The world according to ASF
The roles • Users • Contributors • Committers • PMC
• Customers?
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
The most important participants in the project are people who use our software. Users can contribute to the Apache projects by providing feedback to developers in the form of bug reports and feature suggestions. As well, users can participate in the Apache community by helping other users on mailing lists and user support forums. Users who participate in the project through any mechanism are considered to be Contributors
The most important participants in the project are the people who don’t contribute directly to the project. They are the people who influence others in order to allow them to use our software. They are the customers
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
The FOSS adoption cycle
Contributors
Committers
Development
Adoption
Users
@ShapeBlue #CloudStack #CCCNA14 CloudStack Collaboration Conference NA 2014
The FOSS adoption cycle
Contributors
Committers
Development Customers
Adoption
Users
Marketing
Perception
Engagement
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Making a key technology choice
I think we need to do cloud
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Making a key technology choice
We do Cloud
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Making a key technology choice
Look at our clouds
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Making a key technology choice
We’re better
than the others
because…
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Everybody else says
we’re great
Making a key technology choice
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All our customers
Making a key technology choice
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You have to choose us
Deal
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I think we need to do cloud….I’ll think I’ll phone CloudStack
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“Subscribe to @Users – we’re all nice guys”
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Problem #2
We rely on volunteer marketing
Not enough in the asymmetric world
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Problem #3
Once we engage customers, how can they support us ?
User>Contributor>Committer>
Customer > ????
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Problem #4
Our largest contributor has a $dayjob
Citrix do not sell CloudStack
No incentive at grassroots level
Waiver: Citrix created this thing, that was visionary. Citrix spend $$$$ in supporting this project. They are our biggest contributor and, without their hard work, events
like this wouldn’t happen …..today
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Problem #5
The ASF has the best OSS governance model…
Prohibits direct commercial support for project
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Problem #6
Not enough users become contributors
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Problem #7
“I could see the tumbleweeds blowing through your community” CEO of SDN startup
Mailing lists don’t demonstrate
activity well to outside world
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Summary
A great product, great community
Perception & awareness problems
Our structure doesn't let us engage well with customers
Need for more coherent marketing
How do we fix it ?
CloudStack – Never heard of it! Giles Sirett
CEO, ShapeBlue
Giles.sirett@shapeblue.com
Twitter: @ShapeBlue