This article is a follow-up to my previous article “Rebolution3: think Solution not Revolution” which pinpointed that professional people were looking for Best Business Values relatively to other products. Marketing is key for sure, but it can only leverage a good strategy.
In fact promoting a product that is based on a bad strategy can even be harmfull. Why ? Because as written in this article untitled “The Five Stages Of Early Adopter Behavior” by Louis Gray the early prescriptors of the product may become later upset or attracted by other competitors.
At the start of Rebol’s birth, there were no competitors, today there are plenty of them, the most obvious ones being Flash, Ajax, WPF, JavaFX and the future HTML5. When you are small you cannot fight the giants (I don’t believe in fairy tale like David vs Goliath), you can only grow if you accept to integrate within the dominant system while bringing your own innovation on top of it not against it: this is a win-win behavior for both sides. Rebol seems to refuse to do so contrary to others which are now migrating to .NET and Java VM. It can wait a few years more to realize that this is the number one mistake but the longer this last the more it will lose the potential prescriptors and the more harsh competition will be.
The changes in Rebol 3 is a good step towards an open architecture but it’s far from being enough to convince professional prescriptors that Rebol has any business use if it will still be hard to capitalize with it on traditional platforms.
The second big problem is that Rebol has a free version which is restricted in features compared to competition. I’m not a believer of “Free=Liberty”, I would rather say that Free is mostly supported by Giants today which use this as an economic dumping scheme - the first one in History being Microsoft when she decided that Internet Explorer would become free obliging Netscape to later become free also. But the fact is the Business of little firms are threatened the most in a deflationary world. Softwares are less and less assets and more and more cheap commodities. Instead Software Engeeniering Services are thrilling though we can expect that they will gradually follow the same path as far offshoring will be more widespread and cloud computing from the Big Ones will offer SAAS reducing the needs for custom software engineering.
Does RT think about this future economic trend and prepare to adapt to it ? For me, all versions of Rebol should be downloadable for free for students and companies alike to test them but these users should abide to non-professional use otherwise they should pay the license fee. For that purpose the former commercial version should oblige users to register themselves with professional informations so that RT can track how many professionals are potentially interested in their products. They and their partners can then offer value-added services or ready-made enterprise packages to these business customers and build the ecosystem that is needed for the product to really take off. Of course getting out of the old business scheme is really not easy as it should have been done sooner. I’m not sure this would be economically feasible for RT. But that’s my analysis from the outside. And from outside, this change in Business Strategy would also give the assurance to customers that RT has a new thriving business that will be sustainable for dozens of years more.
I don’t know what Rebol’s strategy really is, I’m not sure that I’m right because this is not a hard Science, but that is my rational analysis.
admin: 
MIKE Husemann: 
Hello,
it is nice you try to adress also non technical aspects of REBOL. I will try to help you find some answers. So here’s my opinion:
There were some marketing related things, which went wrong in R2 days. The interesting thing is, that altough RT tried to communicate that the model of development, cooperation, product strategy and licencing, is going to be all new for R3, we can find ppl trying to judge R3 as a product but measured upon R2 marketing layer.
But - that is hardly your mistake and we have to work harder even in marketing layer. You should be sure that Carl is aware of the problem, and is recently rethinking some things.
As for R3 product composition, please see following link. It is quite old info, and I asked Carl to udapte it and link it into rebol.com /rebol3 section.
rebol.com/rebol3/architecture.html
As for support - we are completly in different situation than what you desribe here. The development is mostly open. Two blog channels, AltME channel, maillist, R3 Chat/CVS, Wiki, New Doc system, CureCode bugbase, etc. Some things are integrated already, and we will integrate even more.
Our communication is definitely better, in comparison to R2 days. It is a “face” we still miss - the website. And I think we can address it, once we have a “product”. And we are close to R3 beta now, you can see project plan here:
rebol.com/r3/docs/project.html
We try to even address even better cooperation with developers and customers
1) we are close to release of Host code, which will open source many R3 parts:
rebol.net/wiki/Host-Builds
2) Community already started to look into Extensions mechanism - we can see first touches of interfacing to OpenGL, Matlab, and even dialect, which generates TCC code.
3) RT is forming a Rebol Consulting service. See more here:
rebol.com/consulting.html
So - I hope my info helps a bit. And of course you can stay assured we are open to your further suggestions
PS: sorry for links, but I could not get via spam protection of your blog …
Hi Petr,
Have put the links
Sure you can build a consulting service, but as long as it is a tiny group of people with no ecosystem, there will be no critical mass to attract people outside the existing “fans”.
Once again, there’s no way you can get any momentum as long as you do not have the capability to call .net or java libraries the other way round is not enough for bringing business values to the majority including to me. I have no use of Rebol outside Hobbies because of this. I will never dare to mention Rebol to clients because of this also.
It’s clearly not a technical problem, but a problem of will from RT. I won’t expect that you will change her and your mind from day one but I hope you will think about that day by day and maybe one day … (I will take as the sign will come when you will give up Altme for a true web forum
)
Who told you such integration will not come, nor that it is not planned? With extensions, it is just in our hands.
As for me, I can see some value for .NET, but JAVA? It is dead in the long run imo, but maybe because I switched from the IBM world to the MS one
True web forum might come. Being on something like on 30 forums, I can pretty much assure you, how wrong you might be - web forum has the only advantage - public visibility = low entrance barrier. Other than that, it can’t compare to any system with instant-messaging (IM) nature. It just does not feel instant, and never will.
There is many technologies, which do have forum, and I barely get answer there, when help is needed. And bumping topics is prohibited. So if we get web forum one day (and there are few ppl interested to bring one), it will be done for ppl like you, who think that if it is not in the browser, it does not exist
Well great to hear that. I agree .NET is currently better than Java but Java is been improving and from business point of view there is still strong demand and even with what exists today, it will maintain java for a long time
As for forum, it’s not like instant messaging, it’s about live knowledge base. And from Marketing and Busines Point of View, no forum = inexisting people.
It’s also interesting to leverage upon Stackoverflow forum which has a lot of traffic by inciting people to ask questions there.
Hello again, I know you’re tired of my Twitter IMs… so leaving a comment this time.
I think we are among the few outsiders who really want to see what I have called the “reboot” of RT happen in marketing. There’s definitely a “if you build it, they will come” idea, which is very much how a technologist thinks. There’s a 99% coding and 1% marketing study after the fact.
Like you, I’m sort of afraid to mention Rebol to people. I have joked that the language’s reputation (in terms of “should you use it”) is so bad that if it were a person, it would have to move to another town and change its name.
On that note, I try and sneak the fact that Rubol is built on Rebol till the end here:
http://hostilefork.com/rubol/
You said you might be interested in writing an article on Rubol. I don’t know what the timing is but I could definitely use your help if you’re feeling like it! Can use better examples, more Ruby features, more documentation…
By a similar token, I think introducing Rebol-powered tools without up-front emphasizing that they are a new language could be good. Then Rebol would just be the “extension language” for that tool. (The parse dialect is a cool candidate. But I think it has has gotten so much attention not because it is the killer app users are looking for, but because they have tons of applications internally in the code. I’m sure there must be lower-hanging fruit.)
Keep in touch!
–Fork
Well currently I am very busy professionally (Rebol is just a hobby) so there may be a few days before I go on twitter or even on my blog
I sure like your idea and will answer to you more thorougly once I have looked at your site.
I indeed like Rebol for its capacity to mimic other languages ( see my scala articles) so I sure like Rubol’s idea. I need to learn a bit about Ruby before I can write anything on Rubol though
As for “I’m sort of afraid to mention Rebol to people” that’s not really my case, I’d rather say that I would not recommend any corporate professional projects in Rebol as long as there is no will from RT to integrate with the existing dominant systems (.NET Framework and Java VM) because otherwise it’s too risky (
For personal projects I am willing to take the risk because the risk is non-inexistant). But as far I can read in the comments above, it’s far from being desperate
Now Carl RT have the right to do whatever they want, I just give my viewpoint that if they are here for the Business and not just for Fun, they should listen to the professional prescriptors who are mostly involved in Java and .NET. If Rebol cannot leverage the existing Business, it will be of no real value for these people including me when I wear that hat.
As for Rebol being Opensource it doesn’t matter so much except if it can bring talents and profits for these talents to build an ecosystem around Rebol. Just an Opensource Rebol alone doesn’t bring anything from Business point of View.
Instead of Opensource, I would rather advise that the full featured Rebol should be downloadable after registration for unlimited time evaluation and that RT changes its Business Model by selling Tools and Components instead of the language itself because there is no more perceived business value on languages since Microsoft, Java etc. give up their compilers for free ! Microsoft and Partners are making money from these Components, Tools (aka Visual Studio) as well as Services or Business Platforms (Sharepoint, …). Same for other Opensource Companies.
I mean Opensource by itself is just a marketing scheme to build a community but in the case of Rebol I’m not sure it will bring much as it is too late so there’s more need than just being opensource to build the Components and Tools Ecosystem that is the REAL things that matter for REAL world projects.
Also Carl is not a MIT student in his garage working for only Peace and Love, I guess him and associates need revenues so that they must be carefull not to bring down his company and himself by going Opensource. It’s not in the interest of Rebol supporters to crush him and his product. I respect RT decisions whatever they are because I’m not a knowledgeable insider of RT, my viewpoint is purely external and may not be adequate from the internal context of the company.
Interesting discussion.
the biggest danger to rebol, I believe is that other more established languages will copy Rebol’s features at some point. (e.g Java fx, silverlight copying vid using declarative way to build gui and now Rubol)
There will be no need for Rebol if this scenario comes true, as Rebol will not enjoy any distinct features anymore to differentiate itself from them.
Rebol has to move fast and deliver fast as well before the above scenario happens, if it wants to survive. It used to have that distinct unique appeal , but I don’t think they have capitalised enough on those features, to market and spread it to the world and build mind share. I am afraid time is running out fast.
the biggest mistake I think it made in that past, was keeping it closed for too long, and it didn’t help that, important parts of it had to be paid for. With all features free, a larger number of developers would have developed a larger ecosystem by now. Also there would have been more “volunteers” contributing by now to make it better. These would have made Rebol more viable.
The company being small, doesn’t have the clout like Sun or Microsoft or IBM, but it could have compensated by developing a bigger following, which would have given it a bigger voice and more influence.
Look at the Mysql model or Caucho (resin app server) models for example of how they can still make money and still leave their product free for the world to use/experiment with their products to build real world apps/components. They use a hybrid “paid and open” model with almost no restriction on the features available. Of course there are other successful models out there too.
It’s not just technology, it’s unfortunately also largely due to the marketing and being in sync with the world’s current expectations. Open source or “free ” is the current trend.
I just hope they listen to our advices. I don’t want them to give everything free and go bankrupt. I agree totally RT has to make money to live and develop Rebol further. However The model they have used , did marginalize them.
Anyway I really hope they can fix things and turn things around before it is too late.
Hello,
so - I tried to work a bit to write-down marketing/strategy related issues to REBOL. Took lots of time, albeit writing did not went much smooth as I would like it to be. Carl Sassenrath then stepped in, and created document about rebol.com website redesign.
Those docs were created to show, that RT & rebol community actually do understand what needs to be done, it is just that things take time:
http://www.rebol.net/wiki/Marketing_Strategy_Websites
Hey great, gonna read it soon
One thing I have noticed over the years is the non-standard installer. Whenever I have used it (WIN/LIN), I have not been pleased with it. After the first-use wizard completes, Rebol works fine as a single-user tool.
For example: On Windows, if I decide to install it, I’d like it *system-wide*, in the normal C:\{application directory}\Rebol\ location and available to all users. I’d rather it use the NSIS or MSI installers instead of a self-made one. On Linux, I’d like a system-wide install in /opt/rebol/ that is available to all users. And the installer should integrate into the system package manager (two main ones: APT [.deb file] and YUM/RPMDrake/YaST [.rpm file]) or at least as an Autopackage.
Not that I am against the ability to have a “me-only” set up. But if I want to put Rebol to use on multi-user machines, I don’t want each user to have to download it and go through the first-use wizard.
I think that fixing this might help with getting the software approved for use inside of companies. Yes, integration with Java / .Net / WSH is also needed, but I’d be surprised if any large company did not have some Delphi / VB5 / VB6 / PowerBuilder applications that don’t integrate with anything else.
There is a CIO/CTO somewhere who is the gatekeeper for approving new technologies. Sometimes, better marketing will sway him, but often times, simple things, such as conventional installers and active (and easily found) forums where staff developers can quickly find out what they need to make use of the product, can make all the difference.
I have to say that I am a fan of Rebol. I’d like to see it become something that the CIO in my organization would approve.
You’re right, Deployment is key in an enterprise, now rebol can be installed just by copying it without launching the install and nothing prevents you to redistribute the free rebol version by repackaging it like you want with MSI or others. In fact Intend to write an article about that.