TTOBST: You stated, "If as you say; " The great part about the Linux tools is that it is a scalable business model for Inprise/Borland," then why can't Inprise go ahead with an aggressive ad campaign with some of that $200mill? I bet that will capture more investor and analysts interests and attention."
Dale address this marketing issue during his interview with Doc Searls:
"Doc Searls: Today let's talk about what's going on with InterBase. Why did you go open source with it?
Dale Fuller: Until now, InterBase hasn't been a core asset at Inprise--at least as a revenue source. In that area it's been small. But it has huge value in so many other ways. This is a world class, bulletproof, fully-tested application that just about everyone needs. So to gain momentum in the marketplace we decided to open source the product. Open source is a word of mouth market, and that's what InterBase needs. And InterBase is what the open source development community needs, too, because InterBase not only fills a huge hole for enterprises, but gives them a way to migrate in a serious way from one platform to another - especially to Linux. There is an explosion of demand for Linux and we can serve that demand by providing a free and open database product that is already proven and tested over the last fifteen years.
Doc Searls: How big do you expect this to be?
Dale Fuller: We expect it to be huge. We have a gigantic following today, by pure market share standards. But what you want with open source is something that serves the whole community, not just a nice piece of it. It's a different game, and one to which this is both timely and well-suited.
Doc Searls: And the prospects were pretty bleak in the commercial marketplace.
Dale Fuller: Exactly. Having a great product isn't enough. You need to spend big marketing dollars just to begin driving awareness. We don't have that kind of money, and we're not interested in playing that game any more.
Doc Searls: Especially since word of mouth is free.
Dale Fuller: Exactly. The Linux market is still young, and our timing is still early, and the mechanisms for growth are extremely powerful. There is a huge need for what InterBase has already been doing for a long time, and the word of mouth in the open source development community should be very strong, very fast.
Doc Searls: And it will help pull through lots of other products.
Dale Fuller: Yes. That includes the Delphi product for Linux, the J Builder products for Linux. These will all be optimized to work very tightly with InterBase."
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