May 2011 - Posts

• Attachmate response for Mono, Monotouch, and Mono for Android is PR Spin at its worst - What they are telling the community - Lets go beyond the obvious

  I was just sent the link to the Attachmate, Novell, SUSE response to the status of Mono.  Unfortunately, it doesn't really provide anything of interest.  Here is the important part: As a result of this increased focus on our core market, we will better align our future investments with business results. Focusing on what matters most to customers is the key to our innovation strategy and will drive the growth of our business. This has meant reductions in certain areas, such as Mono. However, Mono remains part of the SUSE business and should customer demand for Mono products accelerate, our development efforts will rapidly respond. Regardless, we will continue to provide maintenance and support for all Mono products – MonoTouch, Mono for Android, Mono Tools for Visual Studio and SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension. This doesn't sound like anything more than PR spin in a total of 350+ words.  It reads like nothing more than "lalalalalala.........I'm not listening to jeffery..........lalalalalala. We fired the developers and have no idea what to do.............lalalala" Along with this, we're curious and have some business questions: Why should we believe your ability to support the product given that you fired the entire team? Why should we wait on you given the hundreds of thousands of $'s that I have lost over this? Why should your community of customers believe in your ability to update Monotouch and Mono for Android? So, please let us know when Attachmate will have the following features added/fixed in Mono for Android: Debugging in Visual Studio. Performance of the debugger is not good. Many features that VS developers expect are not working properly.  When will you have this issue resolved? Performance of mono for android applications is not up to par with java applications.  What is your schedule for improving performance? When will you support Android Honeycomb 3.0 and 3.1? What are you plans for support the next version of MonoTouch for iOS tentatively titled iOS 5?  Will you be able to continually provide support within 48-72 hours of a new version shipping? Who is the face of the new Mono, Monotouch, and Mono for Android?  Who are the new team members?  What has been their involvement with the community?  How do I contact them, as I previously had the contact info for various team members? When will we see the next update to Monotouch and Mono for Android?  What are you current plans? What are your plans to attend the Monospace conference so that the community can meet these people? BTW, I wrote the above a while ago and decided to let it "sit" for a few days while I digested the meaning.  It appears even worse now that the Monotouch and Mono for Android sites are not functioning and have not worked nearly all this past weekend according to reports on twitter.  In addition, reports on twitter suggest that the ability to purchase, download, and register the products has been taken offline.  Given the timing, it is impossible to assume anything besides Attachmate has scuttled the products.  How will customer demand accelerate without the ability to purchase, download, and register?  Seriously, c'mon.  These actions tell the community that: Attachmate has no interest in the Monotouch and Mono for Android products.  If not, then why have they removed the products from the marketplace.  Removing the ability to purchase and download along with removing the websites from operation sounds like they are removing the products from the marketplace.  Each day that Attachmate keeps the intellectual property of Monotouch and Mono for Android, these products lose value relative to Attachmate.  If Xamarin is able to get a .NET for iPhone product out to the community, the Attachmate Monotouch product's value is nearly zero. IANAL.  Because Attachmate fired the Mono team, employee "non-competes" are typically null and void. IANAL. I know that companies sue based on damages. If Attachmate removes these products from the marketplace voluntarily (and so far, they have removed them voluntarily), I'm not sure that Attachmate has been damaged by Xamarin entering the marketplace. I've also looked at the "patent" issue regarding Mono and Microsoft.  Once again, IANAL.  It looks like an iPhone mono product would be ok.  Microsoft's promises don't extend to to the UI layer, but then again, you don't want a Windows UI on your iPhone.  You want a native iPhone UI on your iPhone.  I am not sure what happens with ADO.NET as there is a Sqlite namespace and Microsoft didn't extend their promises to ADO.NET.  Microsoft has written an API for implementing your own ADO.NET set of classes, so it would be hard to get a judgement on Mono for iPhone and not sue IBM, Oracle, and other database providers. What am I doing?  Personally, I think the existing Monotouch has some good features.  I'm staying with it for the short term.  I'll be mixing in some "vendor directed" ObjectiveC.  When Xamarin produces a Mono for iPhone product, I'm definitely looking at using it as a replacement for the existing Monotouch codebase that I have. As a customer, I'm not mad at Attachmate. Frustrated, yes, but not mad.  I understand business.  I understand about risk/reward.  I don't believe in a vast conspiracy or anything like that. This has the view of a company making a $ billion purchase, and not understanding what they bought.  Its similar to the housing market implosion and CDOs that started in 2007.  Most didn't know what they bought.  I think its the same here.  Attachmate is trying to spin a problem underneath the covers and have it be forgotten about by their shareholders.  In addition, I am not mad at anyone in the Mono/Monotouch/Mono for Android community either.  Once again, life is about risk.  I have made my own choices.  I think some members of the community were trying to calm fears.  In addition, when you are under pressure, you tend to solve the immediate problem with no long term concern (I've been there, I've seen this before, its not really anything to worry about). PS.  My friend Chris Hardy let me know on IM that you can still buy MonoTouch.  I was taking the statements directly from twitter. Some people are making unpleasant statements about Jeff Hawn, CEO of the Attachmate Group.  Unfortunately, I have been one of these jerks as well.  If you look up his background, this is not unexpected and honestly, points to his background in finance.  No, I don't think it some grand conspiracy.  It merely is what it is. PSS. Looks like the Monotouch and Mono for Android sites are back up. Posted May 31 2011, 12:01 PM by wallym with 1 comment(s) Filed under: monotouch, monodroid

• Dear Attachmate, your customers deserve to know what your plans are with regarding to MonoTouch and Mono for Android

  Your customers have invested a tremendous amount with regards to your MonoTouch and Mono for Android products. With your firing the Mono team, you have left these products in limbo, yet you have stated that "all technology roadmaps remain in place." You have a responsibility to your customers to remove doubt from the marketplace and provide more specifics regarding how you are going to cover these technology roadmaps. Posted May 26 2011, 02:30 PM by wallym with no comments Filed under: monotouch, monodroid, mono for android

• Latest Thoughts on Smart Phones - iPhone. iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, and Blackberry

  Its been about 8-9 months since my last look at smart phones, so its that time again.  What's happening: Android has hit 400k activations per day.  Android tablets with Honeycomb haven't had a lot of shipments yet. iPhone, and iOS, shipments are continuing to increase. Blackberry shipments have dropped significantly. Windows Phone 7 hasn't done anything to increase the sales of windows devices.  I've read where shipments are down since the product shipped last fall. Now, that's what we know.  Right now, Android and iPhone are winning.  Blackberry has a flat tire and is falling back.  Windows Phone 7 hasn't really gone well so far. What do we know that is coming up: iPhone and iOS rumors are rampant regarding shipments of new products.  Most recent rumors have a new iPhone and version of iOS being delivered this fall. We won't see a new version of Android until Ice Cream Sandwich, which looks to ship sometime towards the end of this year. I have no idea what Blackberry is doing.  I don't think that they know either. Windows Phone 7 will ship a new version sometime in the fall.  A beta copy of this version was made available today.  At about that time, Nokia will be coming on board with regards to new devices.  I think that WP7 will see a pop at that point in time. I think the key take away is that iPhone/iOS and Android are the clear winners right now.  I think the right thing to do is to...................do nothing different until Winter 2012.  At that time, I'll re-examine whats going on. Posted May 25 2011, 02:00 AM by wallym with no comments

• What do we do now? "It's over man, Wormer dropped the big one" - #MonoTouch and #MonoDroid

  As you likely know, Mono, Monotouch, and Mono for Android are in limbo right now. Bluto: Hey! What's all this laying around stuff? Why are you all still laying around here for? Stork: What the hell are we supposed to do, ya moron? We're all expelled. There's nothing to fight for anymore. D-Day: [to Bluto] Let it go. War's over, man. Wormer dropped the big one. Bluto: What? Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! Otter: [to Boon] Germans? Boon: Forget it, he's rolling. Bluto: And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough... [thinks hard of something to say] Bluto: The tough get goin'! Who's with me? Let's go! [Bluto runs out, alone; then returns] Bluto: What the *** happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you're gonna let it be the worst. "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble." Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this. Wormer, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer... Otter: Dead! Bluto's right. Psychotic... but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part! Bluto: We're just the guys to do it. D-Day: [stands up] Yeah, I agree. Let's go get 'em. Boon: Let's do it. Bluto: [shouting] "Let's do it"! This scene has been in the back of my mind since last Friday night when I got the call that I didn't want to hear, but I knew that it would come.  Anyway, the question now becomes what do you do?  I don't have the answers for everyone, but I have my original decision matrix that I'll repeat here with some discussion mixed in. Go the "vendor directed" native route.  This means having to (re)learn Objective-C for the iPhone and Java for Android along with XCode and Eclipse.  I have problems moving between VB and C#, how am I going to keep these two different platforms straight in my mind?  Thankfully, learning Monotouch and Mono for Android and the fact that its a thin layer over the top of the native APIs means that its just not that hard to move.  This has the least amount of risk, but the most amount of learning. Stay the course and wait for Attachmate to improve the products.  Ok, this is an option, but I doubt it is a very good option.  Attachmate doesn't seem to care about their customers in this situation.  They have had two plus weeks to formulate a strategy to communicate with them and there has been no communication.  Can they enhance and support the products?  I don't know, but I don't think that they have the ability to do this.  What about "All technology roadmaps remain intact"? Stay the short course and wait on Xamarin.  This would involve working with Monotouch until Xamarin can produce a product that will allow for C# to work with the iPhone.  What about Mono for Android?  I've worked with it for a while, and it just isn't ready for prime time yet.  If the debugger had been fixed and performance had been resolved, I would feel different.  I just can't recommend Mono for Android as it exists right now.  What about the legal issues?  I just don't know. So, what am I going to do?  I'm a .NET/C# developer at this point in my life.  I'm not going to Windows Phone 7 (WP7) over this.  WP7 just has not created a lot of interest in the marketplace outside of the Microsoft ecosystem.  The general public has not bought into it.  Things might change in the future, but as of May 17, 2011, I don't see it as an option.  I'm probably going to look at the "vendor directed" route until such time as Xamarin can produce a product that allows for C# on the iPhone and Android.  At that point in time, you'll probably see our book(s) again.  Until that time, I expect my hair to be pulled out.  If you see me sporting the Paul Glavich look, you'll know why. Posted May 17 2011, 03:15 PM by wallym with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Community News, monotouch, mono for android

• All Technology roadmaps remain..........except for the ones that we won't tell you about

  By now, its public knowledge that the Mono team has been fired by Attachmate. I know its been rumor for a couple of weeks, but I got info saying it was true. I think that this is a poor move by Attachmate. They have left their customers swinging in the wind. I feel sorry for the people that have been fired, they are first and foremost in my mind. These guys created MonoTouch and Mono for Android, which are now fully funding the entire Mono ecosystem, will land on their feet. These are smart guys. Someone will want them. They may be able to get Venture Capital to form a company and purchase the rights to all Mono products. While I think about them, I don't worry about them too much at all. What really has me upset is that Attachmate seems to have mislead us.  They have mislead the community as a whole, their customers specifically, and me! Specifically, Jeff Hawn, CEO of The Attachmate Group, made the following statement: "We have re-established Nuremburg as the headquarters of our SUSE business unit and the prioritization and resourcing of certain development efforts - including Mono - will now be determined by the business unit leaders there," said Jeff Hawn, Chairman and CEO of The Attachmate Group in a statement sent to InternetNews.com. "This change led to the release of some US based employees today. As previously stated, all technology roadmaps remain intact with resources being added to those in a manner commensurate with customer demand." Now, I don't know what he means by "all technology roadmaps remain intact", but it looks to me like they have gutted Mono. How you can fire all US and Canada Mono developers and keep all technology roadmaps intact, I have no idea? Does Attachmate have their own set of mono developers ready to go on this? The above just seems to be a very misleading statement.  Attachmate seems to have nothing, nada, zilch. Let me tell you why its such a big deal to me: Books. This basically makes me question if there is any value in the 2 books that I have already published on MonoTouch.  We've put our Mono for Android book on hold. Training. I have had two agreements so far to provide training for developers on MonoTouch and Mono for Android.  I've been talking with other members of the community about expanding this out.  All of this is on hold. Consulting.  SDI has been contacted a number of times over the past few weeks about consulting on MonoTouch and Mono for Android projects.  I think we'd get a couple of them. Startup. I've been looking at a startup for a while now.  I built all the examples on MonoTouch and Mono for Android. Add this up, and you can guess how I feel right now.  I definitely feel mislead by someone.  I think its Attachmate.  They appear to have mislead the community. Now, the next question is what am I planning on doing?  I still think that iPhone and Android are the winners in the current marketplace.  Windows Phone 7 is still a huge bet on the future. This is my decision "tree": Listen to what Miguel and Joe Hill have to say.  I think the heart of the Mono community will do this. Miguel is Mono.  He is the heart and soul of the product. Listen to what Attachmate says. I'd like to know what they have to say.  Can they do something to work with the "former" Mono team?  How are they going to satisfy their customers going forward. Review all of my options for iPhone and Android development.  Maybe ObjectiveC and Java are the right ways to go.  Maybe I should do PhoneGap and Appcelerator. Maybe I should look at something else.  Maybe I should stay the course and stay on Monotouch and Mono for Android until there is something to look at from Xamarin and then jump there. Anyway, thanks to Attachmate. Posted May 16 2011, 09:10 PM by wallym with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Community News, monotouch, mono for android

• AnDevCon II - Android Developer Conference in San Francisco in November, 2011

  I'll be speaking at Android Developer Conference (AnDevCon II) in San Francisco in November, 2011.  I'm honored to be at this event.  I was at the first one in March and had a great time.  I think this one will be great as well.  I'll be speaking on: Mono for Android (full day workshop).  HTML5 for Mobile Devices. Posted May 09 2011, 05:00 PM by wallym with no comments Filed under: Community News, monodroid, android, mono for android

• Talking Mobile on Cloud Plumbing - iPhone, Android, MonoTouch, and Mono for Android

  I was interviewed by Ryan Parsley last week regarding Mobile Computing with iPhone and Android using MonoTouch and Mono for Android. Hopefully, you enjoy it. Posted May 07 2011, 07:00 PM by wallym with no comments Filed under: Community News, iphone, monotouch, android, mono for android

• Another one is "In the books" - Professional Mono for Android is now AR complete

  And with the upload to my editor at Wiley/Wrox, the book known as "Professional Android Programming with Mono for Android and .NET/C#" is now Author Review Complete, barring any slip ups on my part.  Its always a great feeling to get these things done.  A real load off of my shoulders.  The genesis of this book has been really interesting.  It started while we were still writing our "Professional iPhone Programming with MonoTouch" book.  We started talking about this due to the Apple self FUD starting last April.  Watching the number of Android devices sold go up each quarter also helped me make the decision to go forward.  Martin Bowling started as the lead author.  Unfortunately, he had family issues and had to drop off during the planning stages. The other authors that joined me on this were Nathan Blevins, Jon ***, Chris Hardy, and John Croft. Here is some info from the Amazon web site about our book: The wait is over! For the millions of .NET/C# developers who have been eagerly awaiting the book that will guide them through the white-hot field of Android application programming, this is the book. As the first guide to focus on Mono for Android, this must-have resource dives into writing applications against Mono with C# and compiling executables that run on the Android family of devices. Putting the proven Wrox Professional format into practice, the authors provide you with the knowledge you need to become a successful Android application developer without having to learn another programming language. You'll explore screen controls, UI development, tables and layouts, and MonoDevelop as you become adept at developing Android applications with Mono for Android. Answers the demand for a detailed book on the extraordinarily popular field of Android application development Strengthens your existing skills of writing applications and shows you how to transfer your talents to building Android apps with Mono for Android and .NET/C# Dives into working with data, REST, SOAP, XML, and JSON Discusses how to communicate with other applications, deploy apps, and even make money in the process Professional Android Programming with Mono for Android and .NET/C# gets you up and running with Android app development today.   Posted May 03 2011, 10:30 PM by wallym with no comments Filed under: Community News, c#, monodroid, mono for android