Let's go back in time and put on my Analyst / Marketing pants. It's years ago, I'm advising @elastic, and @awscloud has just come out with "Amazon Elasticsearch." This feels bad, since (as attested in court) they didn't give a heads up, and there's the danger of brand confusion.
First, I've gotta admit that I'm fighting a rearguard action in some ways. "Elastic Compute" predates the founding of the company and its trademark by a lot, and there are a bunch of other "Elastic" terms people equate with AWS.
In effect, the odds are basically zero that people already aren't equating our stuff as being an Amazon offering. I'm only half kidding when I suggest "Stretchy-Go-Findy" as an alternate name.
First, I'd immediately try out the newly launched AESS. I'm heartened to discover that is is Really Bad. I can't depend on this remaining true, but I can definitely make a marketing splash by offering prospects a free month of AWS's offering to reinforce that ours is better.
In the mid-term I'd call an Elastic Contributor Summit. These folks didn't just donate code; they in many ways view "Elastic" as composing part of their own identities. They want to help!
I don't presume to speak for the community, but it'd let me lay my cards on the table. They're a diverse and smart bunch!
The key difference here is that regardless of what actions we take, the community would feel consulted and "bought in" on what came next.
More to the point, I'd have ~1500 people now acutely aware of the issues facing us. That's one hell of a street team; they're embedded at @awscloud customers everywhere. That's definitely enough of a voice to move whatever 2-pizza team at AWS built their monstrosity.
Open Source isn't a business model, and you don't want to confuse it with one. Community is a strategy, and one that offers unique strengths. If you're not going to leverage those strengths, what was the point? Free dev work?
Further, AWS absolutely sucks at messaging. It doesn't exactly take a giant PR budget to turn this into "anyone defending AWS is clearly a shill" while strengthening your own brand instead of torching it.
But I'm not a 2015 marketing consultant / analyst to @elastic. It's 2021, and here we are. And the opportunity lost is a damned shame for everyone involved.
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Another day, another "fuck you for paying us" from Google.
If you don’t think sharp edges like this on your consumer products shape opinions of your business (read as: cloud) products, you’re dead wrong.
(This is my “personal” account; it’s my 20 year old vanity domain for personal email; nobody else has an account on the domain. The only way to have a custom domain is to pay Google—which I’m normally okay with until I hit nonsense like this.)
Yes. That is exactly the *point* of open source. Don't like it? That's valid! Don't go open source. But to claim that @awscloud and others are somehow doing something underhanded is just flat out incorrect.
As @vmbrasseur points out, using @elastic or Kibana are now actively business risks that your company needs to manage.
And now a livetweet thread of a legal conference in the case of C21-31-BJR, Parler LLC v. @awscloud.
Parler suggests "AWS just has to flip a switch and Parler gets turned back on. Parler has been their customer for 2.5 years."
"They've met and conferred over some user content that violates not only Parler's user requirements, but also Amazon's." Yes, they'll do that, whether you want them to or not.
This one grabbed my attention. I spent two years at @TaosTech. They’re the reason I moved to SF, started my own consulting firm, and met some wonderful people. It’s probably the best job I ever had.
The @TaosTech technical interview is a thing of genius. It's standardized, modeled after SAGE levels, and reshaped how I think about hiring engineers.
At the time my biggest gripe with Taos was that they didn't have a role into which I "fit." With the benefit of hindsight that's not their fault; I don't fit in anywhere, which is why I'm here.
Let me point out some cloud magic tonight / say some nice things.
Normally I dunk on @awscloud in these threads, but today that puts me Nazi-adjacent. Plus AWS marketing's nerves are a little... frayed, so I fear for my safety.
The easy starting point is @awssupport. People are just rude as hell to them and they take it on the chin like the professionals they are. "Amazon is owned by a billionaire!" but he doesn't have to field the support tweets.
They also have to figure out when I'm trolling.
No matter how much you complain, they'll help you out. They're marvels, and good people too.