Category Archives: Uncategorized

Cyn.in V2 goes open source, now available as on-premise ‘software appliance’

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Cyn.in the Mumbai based Enterprise 2.0 collaboration company (profiled on Webyantra in Sep’06 ) has launched its platforms in two new avataars. Cyn.in V2 is now being offered in an on premise model packaged as what the company is calling a “software appliance“. Additionally Cyn.in V2 community edition is being released under the GNU GPL v3 license- it is full featured, free to download, use, hack and customize. It may be recalled that Cyn.in V1 is a SAAS platform and the new version is based on feedback from its users asking for a variant that could be installed behind corporate firewalls.

So what exactly is a software appliance? According to the company, a software appliance is a software application combined with just enough operating system (JeOS) for it to run optimally on industry standard hardware (typically a server). Accordingly the cyn.in software appliance integrates the application, its software dependencies, the application and the database servers, and even a fine tuned, hardened Operating system, into an easy to use, portable, live updatatable software appliance. This can run on most industry leading appliance virtual machine platforms, such as VM Ware, XenSource, Microsoft VHD or can be directly installed on a standard bare metal server.

Key features for this appliance include

– Collaborative applications like Wikis, Blogs, File Repositories, Calendars etc
– Enterprise class Content Management capabilities with customizable workflows, version control etc
– XML & Open standards based APIs for extensibility and integration into existing systems

Cyn.in is pitching its product as a direct competitor to other enterprise level collaboration solutions like Microsoft Sharepoint, Atlassian Confluence, Jive Clearspace, Knowledge Tree, Social Text, Alfresco etc. Check out the product comparison chart below.

The appliance is available in two editions – Enterprise (costs $6250 annually) & Small business (costs 1950$ annually). The SAAS edition (priced at $8/user/month) continues as before. Check out the comparison chart between diff Cyn.in versions.

Cyn.in looks like an ambitious product. It certainly has some innovative things going for it, though I feel it might be a victim of featuritis.

Rediff rolls out its API platform for developers…

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One of the surprising developments at Proto was the announcement by Rediff (which incidentally was the platinum sponsor for the event) of its developer platform by opening up its APIs. The platform will allow developers to create an applications economy on Rediff on the lines of Facebook & Open Social. The move is laudable – it speaks of Rediff’s confidence in its own engineering prowess, though it can be argued that Rediff hardly has the social graph that is necessary for making this successful. RediffMail is likely to have the largest user base, but other services – iShare, Connexions, Rediffblogs etc have a fragmented usage pattern, something that is not best suited for social graph platforms. Below is a snap from the presentation that Rediff ‘s platform head gave at Proto.

To push the platform, the company has also announced an incentive program for application developers. Interested people can submit their ideas to the company and the best 10 entries stand to get a grant of 250K for building the app.

This move is an indication that the Indian homegrown portals are not going to allow the global biggies to eat the cake out of their hands. While they may not have the technical depth, that a Google or Facebook has, they are willing to take the battle to the middle in protecting their home turf.

So who’s next in line… Indiatimes? Sify? any takers ….

Update: Manu from TechSutra notes that Rediff has ripped their platform off Facebook completely. This is what he says- “………… Rediff has completely ripped off facebook devloper platform from naming of API to documentation. FBML becomes RBML, FQL becomes RQL. You can compare the documentation of FQL & RQL below.

Forget innovation, rediff can’t be even bothered to write their own documentation. Right now, there are no appplications which rediff has showcased. All they have is the ripped off documentation and a “get in touch” form which asks you for your application ideas. The form says “Terms and conditions” apply but no where can I find the terms and conditions. This has to be the most ridiculous and shameless platform launch ever!…..”

Read his post here.

What do you say- is it bouquets or brickbats for Rediff?