Jeff Jarvis suggests Typepad divest from Six Apart as a full service business so that Moveable Type can offer more attractive licenses, which he feels are clearly limited based on blocking potential competitors to Typepad. Jeff’s logic seems right on, based on and considering the backlash currently rising within the MT community, somethings going to have to give if they expect to pull out of this without too much damage to their existing market share.
I suggest divesting. Then SixApart, the software business, will come up with licenses that serve its customers well and will sell as many as possible. Rather then having your entire customer base scream in protest — as they are now — they would beat a path to your door to pay for your mousetrap (whenever your customers are screaming in protest, you know you are doing something very wrong). Meanwhile, TypePad — a licensee of Movable Type software — would offer no-hassle and reasonably priced hosting and would compete with other licensees. Competition would lead to more business for the two companies and happier customers and probably market dominance for Movable Type and its standards (e.g., TypeKey and Trackbacks). Instead, what we’re seeing now is that SixApart is driving present and potential customers to competitors. [BuzzMachine]