Mitch Kapor posted last week in his blog the new features in the latest release of Chandler, a next-generation PIM (Personal Information Manager) written in an open-source language called Python.  This powerful application will be able to manage personal user information in a straightforward manner, in addition to facillitating data sharing and collaboration.  The product roadmap calls for extensive customization capabilities, in addition to other high-volume power user features.

The most recently tested version of Chandler (Release 0.3) was built on February 26th, 2004.  Eventually, as the program picks up steam and gains increased popularity, it may become more appealing to enterprises at large, particularly due to the fact that it is an open source application.  Wouldn't it be interesting to see an enterprise vendor such as Avaya, Cisco or Nortel to pick up the source code and customize a version of Chandler for their own IP PBX?  That could be a distinct possibility, if the popularity of Chandler increases and if it turns out to be in fact easier to use than most proprietary PIMs (e.g. Cisco's Personal Assistant).  Granted, those are two big "IFs".  Regardless, even under this hypothetical scenario, vendors embracing Chandler would have to hide the "hooks" into their IP PBXs, and offer the application itself for free (of course, as for those hooks, that would be a completely different story).

One of the key advantages of open source development is that OSAF (the Open Source Applications Foundation) can quickly experiment with and implement drastically different UIs in ways that other PIM vendors with established end-user bases simply cannot.  The result is the promise of a superior end-user experience.