Getting to know Ars Aperta’s business

I usually don’t write about this topic often, but I thought it would be interesting -and perhaps enlightening- to explain a bit more what my company, Ars Aperta provides as a business. I think it’s the right time today, as we have almost finished our upgrade to Ikaaro’s new release. Ikaaro is developed by a french company called Itaapy, and you should watch these guys: Ikaaro is now able to produce content from and to ODF while using ODF document templates at the same time. You can try their demo online and see for yourself. But I digress, back to Ars Aperta.

We took the opportunity of this upgrade to clarify and revise the content on our website, and I think that what we offer as a team of consultants is now much clearer. Basically, we have three lines of business. The first, and the most generic one, is our consulting services.  Ars Aperta provides client assistance and strategic consulting services (sometimes dubbed as “management consulting”) in the fields of information technologies, with a focus on Free & Open Source Software and Open Standards. Our existing customers have also worked with us on non specific Free and Open Source Software consulting project, so I guess one could say we tend to have a broader scope than our original focus.  We also wished to highlight the fact that we provide specific services on software licensing and asset management, sometimes done with partnerships with established legal firms. Although these are services we have been offering almost since our inception we are raising the awareness on them as you will see more substantial announcements in this particular field coming in the next months. These services tend to be somewhat traditional, and in more than a way they are. However, Ars Aperta is able to offer a set of high value expertise in a term we have coined as “community relationship management”. This involves community management, skills assessment, collaborative processes and so on. This is something more “traditional” consultancies will not provide, as it requires personal background and specialized expertise on Free and Open Source Software communities.

Ars Aperta’s second line of business is our expertise on IT public policy. In Europe public policy is sometimes considered as a borderline business, and the mental representation of “men in black” comes to mind. I would just like to clarify Ars Aperta’s unique positioning in the field of public policy: We provide our expertise in the fields of digital economy and standards and we value our expertise as a construct of knowledge, practice and work that strives to serve citizens, openness, freedom and sustainability. In short, we pick our missions and do not work for tobacco companies.

Our third line of business, which in a way connects the two others, is our expertise on interoperability. This covers our expertise on standards development and dissemination, and also some more technical aspects of it such as what we do inside the the lpOD research project. We also help customers with their own questions and issues on interoperability, and this also falls in the line of our strategic consultancy services.

On our website you will also find another tab called Certifications. Our Certification programmes stand somewhat besides our usual business. They are used by organizations who want a clear assessment of their own standing in regard of open source processes or with respect to their own contributions to open source projects. As an addition, these certifications can also embrace broader cases of the involvement to a community.

Feel free to let me know about your likes or dislike on our website, and as usual, I am always pleased to start a conversation on what Ars Aperta can offer your organization.