Podcast: Interview with Propalms CEO Owen Dukes

Most people know that Propalms bought the Tarantella TSE software from Sun a few months ago, but almost no one has ever heard of Propalms. In today's show, I'm pleased to interview Owen Dukes, the CEO of Propalms.
Most people know that Propalms bought the Tarantella TSE software from Sun a few months ago, but almost no one has ever heard of Propalms. In today's show, I'm pleased to interview Owen Dukes, the CEO of Propalms. My goal was to find out who Propalms is, what's they're planning on doing with the Tarantella TSE product, and how they plan on competing against Citrix.
You'll learn a lot in today's 27 minute show, including:
- Propalms plans to rebrand the product as "Propalms TSE."
- They'll release version 4.1 in a few weeks and version 5 next year.
- Propalms plans to make several editions: Startup, Professional, and Enterprise
- Longer term, Propalms plans to focus on solving rogue application problems, improving application performance, server deployment, and administration.
- They'll also focus on making their software work on all clients (they'd love to get Blackberry support too)
- Propalms is hinting at an appliance offering--A single SKU that includes all hardware, software (OEM'ed Windows, etc.) and everything a small company needs to plug in a box to provide applications to users.
- How Propalms plans to convince people to buy software from a small vendor instead of a huge monopoly.
The product is good and shows great potential and hopefully they will rally around it. They have been really good at resolving issues quickly and are responsive. Hopefully the transition won't hinder that within the company.
One thing that would be nice is for them to open an area where they can receive comments from their userbase. I think Tarantella abandoned the newsgroups and it was the users who were supporting themselves. So this gives Propalms a chance to shine if they can listen, communicate, and build a better mousetrap.