Be careful, reporters may want you to say something negative about Google and/or the Google Calendar, the tension/conflict makes for a more interesting story. We do NOT want to do that!

We don't have a shipping product yet, and as such should currently consider Google NOT as a competitor, but as a fellow pioneer developing best practices in collaborative calendaring. In fact, we would welcome more robust interoperability (not just import/export) between Chandler and Google Calendar through open standard protocols.

We need to decide to talk about the "Vision of Chandler", i.e. Chandler 1.0, or the current state, 0.7alpha1 and try to keep our comments about "Chandler" consistent to one or the other. If we do need to switch contexts, make it VERY clear when we are talking about planned features or functionality, rather than what it can do today (the day Google Calendar Beta went live). -- We all agree that in keeping with OSAF's no-spin philosophy we should focus on the early functionality we are shipping today with the 0.7alpha versions, or at most talk about features that will be available in version 0.7 (6 month horizon).

Google Calendar Talking Points

Quick comment from OSAF regarding the public release of Google Calendar on April 13, 2006

We welcome Google's entry into the shared calendar market. We expect widespread acceptance of Google Calendar will validate the usefulness of some features and functionality that we have also used in the design of Chandler -- like:

• multiple multi-author shared calendars with composite overlay views,
• support for open standards for distribution and interoperability,
• secured as well as open access for designated shared calendars, and
• limited free/busy views for some calendars.

Of course, unlike Google Calendar, Chandler is a desktop application so you can work off-line as well as on-line, though as part of the Chandler ecosystem we will also have a web application (Scooby) that will provide access to your shared information through a web browser. And Chandler is designed to help you manage much more of your personal information than just calendar events.

Points Supportive of Google Calendar

• We expect Google Calendar will validate (through aggressive membership signups) the need and importance for easily shared, multiple-author calendars.
• Google Calendar will help establish the useful paradigm of multiple personal calendars with selective overlay views (and the need to combine personal calendars with public and other individuals' personal shared calendars).
• Google Calendar's implementation will help establish the need and raise expectations for access control and security for some (but not all) shared calendars.
• Google Calendar demonstrates the usefulness of supporting interoperable calendar standards for import/export and for sharing
  • Google Calendar currently supports iCal, and XML (RSS) to allow Read Only viewing of events without signing up for a Google Calendar account.
• It looks like they've done a very nice thoughtful job on the UI and feature set for a Beta product. Nice integration with Gmail invitations for example

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Differentiators between the Chandler ecosystem plan and Google Calendar

• Chandler is a desktop client, Scooby will be a web client. This ecosystem will allow the user the benefits of both a desktop client (working offline, richer editing experience) as well as the benefits of a modern web app like google's calendar.
• Chandler is not just a calendar (triage decisions in an interrupt-driven world), and will also manage other kinds of information like, tasks, and e-mail including easy mutability and support of multiple-kinds.
• Chandler items can be multiple types (events, tasks, emails, etc.)
• Chandler events can exist in more than one collection without duplication.
• Chandler supports CalDAV (more interoperability IETF draft standard, we hope that Google will join in)
• Chandler, Cosmo, and soon Scooby are open source and can be customized, modified, extended, and incorporated for any purpose the user wishes.
• With Cosmo/Chandler, you can host your own calendar server, and feel more secure about your data.

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Cautions

• Google currently does not yet participate in the emerging open standard for sharing calendars CalDAV.
• Read/Write (editing) access to a shared calendar requires registering your e-mail address with Google to set up a Google account. Some folks are wary of distributing their e-mail addresses to large companies.

-- PieterHartsook - 13 Apr 2006