InfoWorld: Is SpikeSource profitable at this point?
Polese: Well, we don’t yet discuss [that] and we probably won’t until we become a public company, should that event occur. We don’t
reveal information about our financials at this point.
InfoWorld: There’s been talk in the last couple of years about whether commercial software would go away. Do you think there will always
be a place for commercial software? You’re not going to have a world where all software is free? You don’t see that happening,
do you?
Polese: Well, just to sort of drill down on that word a little bit, there’s commercial and there’s proprietary, and there’s open
and there’s closed, and there’s different combinations of all four of those.
InfoWorld: I’m talking about where you pay for the licensing in software.
Polese: I don’t think any one model will be the only model out there in the market, so I do think there will continue to be software
that’s priced and sold successfully using the enterprise software license model. But I think the majority of software over
time will move to software-as-a-service subscription or on-demand models simply because the cost savings and ease for the
end customer is so compelling. And because the Internet now enables us to deliver with low overhead very high values for an
ongoing basis to customers, and that’s what they want.
They ultimately just want the software to work and they want it to perform as promised, and that really requires ongoing maintenance,
which is of value and should be a cost that customers are willing to bear, and they are, indeed. So I think the model will,
over time, move more and more to software as a service or on-demand, but I don’t think that’ll be 100 percent [of] the market
in any case. I think you’ll see a combination of open and closed, proprietary, commercial, enterprise licensed, and SaaS models.
InfoWorld: Do you have any upcoming announcements you want to talk about at this point?
Polese: Not at this point, but we certainly will be over the next several months.
InfoWorld: Can you elaborate at all on that?
Polese: It will be related to our customers that we’re seeing out there in terms of how they’re using the product, and specifically
customers as they are willing to be identified. Obviously in the beginning, when you’re starting to sell, it takes a while
for customers to be willing to be identified publicly, but that will happen over coming months. So [we will discuss] customers,
partners, deployments, how is it really working out there in the world of IT? How are people using our services?
InfoWorld: I was looking at your biographical information on the SpikeSource Web site, and it mentioned you were the original product
manager for Java at Sun Microsystems. Do you think after 10 years that Java has met, exceeded, or fallen short of your expectations?
Polese: Well, [this] is a personal opinion, it’s not a SpikeSource opinion, but I’m thrilled with the success of Java. It has exceeded
my expectations. It’s a phenomenal number of developers, of devices that are deployed based on Java, enterprises that are
using Java. And I can tell you this anecdotally, in our customer base [when] talking with companies, most of them are using
Java. Java is very much mainstream when it comes to enterprise applications and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
InfoWorld: One more question about Java. Do you think Java needs to be available in an open source format, or should they stick with
the Java Community Process?
Polese: That’s one that actually I prefer not to weigh in on right now. I [haven't been] examining the community model lately and
contrasting that to a pure open source model, so rather than stating an opinion without having thought about it, I’d like
to hold off on that one.
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