[Obm] Formally introducing myself to OBM community

[Lilian CHAMONTIN]

Dear all,

I'd like to introduce myself to this mailing list and community : I'm 
Lilian Chamontin, the new OBM product manager at Linagora. I'm in charge 
of the core product team, under strategic direction of Michel-Marie Maudet.

I'm French, 39, with a passion for product development and software 
architectures and a solid experience in these fields (all my 
professional life).

To introduce myself a little bit further, I'd just say I used to be a 
java expert on the middleware and desktop field, and some parts of my 
code are still floating around, either in the JDK or in open source 
projects. I still code as much as I can, although it's not my main 
occupation now, which I regret sometimes !
I've designed large applications (multi-million lines of code), shaped 
enterprise architectures, and worked with small to very large teams and 
budgets along the years. ...well, I've also worked on not-so-funny stuff 
from time to time, but who hasn't ? :-)

I'm really happy to be part of OBM's future, which is so critical for 
many people and organizations ! It has all the things I love in product 
direction : start from a blank page but with a solid background, keep 
users and customers happy, go beyond competitors, work with a great team 
and be open source !

At start, I will mostly act as the new product owner, shaping the 
user-oriented features and general behaviour of the next generations of 
OBM (OBM 2.5 and 3.0), and interacting with the development team as 
expected in Agile practices (i.e. formally at start and end of 
iterations, and informally whenever required to address issues and 
questions).

Later on, you will also find me involved in OBM tech stories, which is 
not so common for a product owner, but explained by my technical 
background and my personal motivation on that matter.

OBM, although being twelve years old, remains state-of-the-art on the 
functional side (our calendar is truly awesome). However, its age shows 
more on the technical side : built from a (too) large set of disparate 
technologies, some parts getting harder and harder to maintain, and some 
almost impossible to refactor.

To move a step further and become a world-class collaborative suite, 
what OBM needs now is a drastic change on the technical side (more on 
this later this year), and a refocus on enhancing its core features 
which are Agenda, Contacts, Communication and Collaboration.

This is the mission I've been assigned to (thanks Michel-Marie !), a 
great challenge that I'm confident to meet with the help of this great 
technical team (such large skillset and dedication is rare) and the full 
support of our management board.

My final word will be for OBM's contributors, users and customers : 
Since I started in professional software development (that was in 1994), 
I've always be driven by the following rules :
- above all, keep customers happy, treat them well,
- take product quality to the highest standard,
- always aim at the greatest features,
OBM 2 users can rest assured they won't be forgotten in this great 
rewrite, and that migrating to OBM 3.0 will be as no-brainer as 
possible, bulletproof, and that they'll gain a lot following us in this 
great adventure !

I'll get back to you through this list later on (around march), to give 
the community an opportunity to shape or influence OBM 3.0 features, and 
to call for contributions (OBM 3.0 will be VERY sexy, on the technical 
side). I'll keep you posted !

Thanks for your attention, and best regards,

Lilian Chamontin


p.s. to avoid gender confusion : Lilian is a male name in France ;-)

-- 

Lilian Chamontin

Directeur Produit OBM,
Linagora
Tel : 06 07 15 08 02