He should start by fixing Typepad export first.

Broken since 2003. SixApart deliberately make it impossible to export with permalinks, requiring twenty step workarounds to export from Typepad to Wordpress.

It took me two years to get my own weblog back intact.

Yes, there are similar plugins for Wordpress already but they were not developed by a dedicated team at Automattic. I think there is a real difference between plugins and features developed by the community and plugins developed by company that developed the platform.

TechCrunch has a piece on it: Not A Typo: Six Apart Opens Up Suite Of Products For Rival WordPress about Anil Dash’s announcement at Saturday’s WordCamp Mid-Atlantic that Sixapart has developed a plugin for WordPress users, as well as a ‘whole bunch…

Our two communities have made strides to move past historical differences and this is just an extension of that effort. This doesn’t change the fact that I think WordPress is the best product out there, or, I’m sure, Anil’s feeling that MovableType or TypePad are the best products out there.

I think we both agree, however, that the war should be over content, not over platform. If we’re doing our jobs right, the platform disappears.

robert’s right. Those who have actually spent time with movable type recently will know that for certain applications, it’s preferable to the wordpress’ offerings.

I use MT, MT Community, WP, WPMU and I like them all.

It does smack of a white flag of sorts frankly but there are reasons to use MT. It’s a solid platform.
However the documentation has gone to hell and back IMO.

But seriously, this doesn’t provide any substantial functionality that WordPress users don’t already have. The headline should read “Six Apart opens its advertising network to WordPress users”.