Yes it happened Tuesday last week. The national TV of Spain broadcasted at 20:00 pm -prime time here- an interview with me and Ismael Ciordia our CTO and one of the three founders. The interview was part of a series of shows that talk about successful entrepreneurial ventures in Spain sponsored by Banesto and ICEX .
It is a short interview but it shows several things that I like:

1. It once again demonstrates how the dissemination works for an open source venture. Openbravo was picked because it illustrates the counterintuitive argument that giving away can result in profitable growth...and we obviously didn’t have to pay a single penny for the spot ;-). The full case is here.
   
2. We are presented as a success story in the country we started operations so I am happy that is not only foreign media such as RedHerring, SourceForge and international media that recognise our progress.
3. The case is focused on an area which in my opinion provides good lessons to many entrepreneurs: the important decisions that the founders of the company had to make to grow the company, including the recruiting a new external CEO (that is me) and other key executives. In my believe this is something that many founders hesitate to do, and results in a serious hindering of the growth potential of their projects. I must say that our founders acted wisely there (honestly, I really think so)
4. In the video you could see that there is good professional and at the same time friendly atmosphere among the team, which is a key requirement for a winning company ...
   
5. ... and last but not least, very good shots of our new release 2.3 which is about to be presented in LinuxWorld San Francisco. Some of these shots show the ERP running in Chinese thanks to our Chinese community which has done the localization.
   

For the ones that don’t speak Spanish, we’ll figure out how we can translate the video.

From August 6-9, Openbravo will be making its 2nd trip to the San Francisco LinuxWorld (Booth #1308). This conference is billed as “…the premier event for the Linux and open source community, bringing together industry leaders shaping the future of new enterprise technology in the largest single gathering of business and technical leaders deploying Linux and open source solutions.”

While the event accomplishes that and more, as a first time Exhibitor in 2006 I only remembered it as “Ok…nice…Openbravo is now officially on the open source map.” With the help of all the buzz, we have started climbing the ladder - shown by reaching the #1 rank on SourceForge and over 200,000 downloads – and look forward to new possibilities for growth and collaboration.

This year, I’ll head home to the States with Manel Sarasa (CEO), Josep Mitja (COO), and Lluis Llavina (Channel Management Director). Whereas last year we were maybe 20 employees, now we number over 50, and are from 8 different countries. Maybe this is all part of it because as for what to expect this year, the big thing I think is not to being as shocked or excited if people bring up our company during forum discussions.

We are inviting all those interested in scheduling meetings with us during the conference to do so quickly by emailing us at partners@openbravo.com. This is because thanks to our community, we have helped develop multiple leads for Openbravo growth and a buzz around the upcoming V2.3 release. For more information regarding our plans at LinuxWorld and the new release, take a look at our LinuxWorld Press Release.

If you are heading to the event, please come visit us at Booth #1308. We look forward to answering any questions or taking any comments you may have. We are happy and thankful to be returning to LinuxWorld again. For those that stop by on the 9th, I'll also be happy to tell you what Round 2 will be remembered for.

One of the things that I really love about Openbravo is the team’s determination to redefine the rules on how ERP software is designed, developed and marketed in all areas. Over the next few days, we’ll be talking about the power of our next release (you can try our BETA version by downloading it here) and how we plan to continue innovating our Product area. In this post, I want to briefly talk about another important innovation that was introduced two weeks ago: the "Pioneers" campaign targeting potential partners who want to be the first to introduce Openbravo in their country.

Being the first Partner in a country not only means a clear first mover advantage, but also taking the responsibility to localize Openbravo to the specific territory. “Pioneers” is a campaign which targets the acquisition of a qualified partner in a country so that it can thus help serve the objectives of all of us: Community, Partners, and Openbravo as a company. So what do each of these parties gain?

• The Community gains a free published localization pack (developed by the Partner with Openbravo’s professional support).
• The Partner gains a once-in-a lifetime opportunity, as the first and only partner to get this offer, to benefit from all professional services required to build up its Openbravo practice. In addition, they naturally get a first mover business advantage plus the community recognition for being the first company to develop and publish the localization
• Openbravo as a company gains a new qualified partner and takes a giant step toward opening the future of ERPs in each country.

I started this post elevating our team’s determination to redefine the rules of this business. These are rules that are redefined thanks to all those who form the broad Openbravo community: people, companies, partners, and obviously in this case, our team in Sales.

Please keep sending your feedback, regardless of your relationship with us as a company. We’ll make sure that we channel it adequately to continue with the innovation wheel. If you want to become a Pioneering Partner please submit your application here. Thank you all.