[Discussioni] Newsscan

[Francesco Potorti`]

PROJECT AVALANCHE COULD SNOWBALL
      Project Avalanche is putting a new spin on the coop concept -- rather 
than sharing health foods or vacation condos, members share intellectual 
property. For $30,000 a year, companies may donate any in-house software to 
the Avalanche library and may use, free of charge, any other software in 
the library's collection. While the project's still in its fledgling stage, 
several big names have lined up as sponsors, including Best Buy, Cargill 
and Medtronic. One of the first donations came from Best Buy, which 
contributed its AppTalk software -- a piece of so-called plumbing software 
that enables programs to communicate with each other. Avalanche founders 
Andrew Black and Scott Lien have big plans for their high-tech coop, aimed 
primarily at saving members the aggravation of paying thousands or even 
millions of dollars to companies like Siebel Systems and Microsoft, whose 
bread-and-butter revenue is generated through custom software applications 
and licensing arrangements. Black and Lien reason that by harnessing the 
combined talent pool of member companies, they will be able to come up with 
superior generic products that could benefit all members, allowing them to 
save their real time and energy for software projects that generate a 
concrete competitive advantage. (Wall Street Journal 12 Apr 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108172269419479841,00.html (sub req'd)