Montreal Tech Watch

StatusNet announced last week the release of version 1.0 of its open source federated micro-blogging software, that lets companies and groups have their own private micro-blogging software. As you can see in the blog post, major features were implemented for groups, such as private postings, events, Q&A, polls, more plugins, as well as better integration. The features list competes with Yammer’s or Jive Software’s Clearspace, and positions it as a good choice for group communication and project management. It should be especially interesting for companies or organizations working solely on the internet, with different offices throughout the world, and consultants in different countries.

StatusNet celebrated the milestone last Friday with a party, inviting the startup community & friends to come over. Startups launching a product are rare, and startups going out of alpha or beta are even more rare. Evan Prodroumou, founder of StatusNet, was especially proud that day, and took the opportunity to thank the technology team. It’s a job well done, and a proof that open source startups do work. We’ve seen Evan Prodromou talk at LawyersLounge, launch an open source startup blog, as well as create a popular Montreal + Startups facebook group, establishing himself as a resource and authority on startups and open source startups locally.

As for the future, Yammer, one of its main competitors raised a total of $57M, proving there’s a big market in enterprising micro-blogging software… open source do bring additionnal points to the table (“the community”) so we will see how statusnet can leverage that community.