Open Source Services Come of Age

Rob writes "A new breed of solutions and services companies is bringing a more professional approach to the deployment of open source software. A sure sign of a maturing market is when vendors stop talking about products and start talking about services and 'solution stacks'. It can be indicative that the marketing team have taken over from the engineers in charge of presenting the company to the outside world, but also shows that customers are demanding a more professional approach towards the deployment of the technology. This is certainly the case in the open source software market, where a clutch of new solutions and services companies have recently sprung up to guide enterprise customers through the difficulties of open source software deployment."

Comments

A sure sign of bloat

[saskboy]

" A sure sign of a maturing market is when vendors stop talking about products and start talking about services and 'solution stacks'."

That kind of buzz word lingo is also a sure sign of bloat. It makes my skin crawl to hear words like "solution stack", not only because I don't know what the heck it means, but also because it doesn't mean anything. It's a fuzzy complicated way of saying, "a bunch of related software products that you'll find useful in your company".

I guess for OSS to join the mainstream, it will have to use the same insipid lingo that the big guns like IBM and Symantec are using.

Re:A sure sign of bloat

[symbolic]

I have to disagree. Once upon a time, software companies sold software. Today, they don't sell software, they sell "solutions". In fact, EVERYONE sells "solutions". What's a solution, anyway? I can't think of a more vague description that completely removes any attempt at intelligent evaluation.

Using this kind of language allows marketing types to change their tune on que. A "solution" is abstract. An accounting application, on the other hand, is something I can start to evaluate.

Re:A sure sign of bloat

[Scarblac]

The thing is though, that you also come across as an expert if you package the truth in fancy mumbo jumbo. If I tell a client the plain truth, in words they understand, I come across as amateur and as a person whose advice can be ignored compared to when I say the exact same thing using words that sound good, mean exactly the same, and are unknown to them, while dressing up in a suit. Even after working intensively with these people for a year.

The interesting corollary is that if you are an honest professional and your client does not know much about IT, it is your duty to your client to package good advice in a format that he doesn't understand, but will accept as gospel. Ironic but true.

That marketing practice is age old because it works, and people expect it from you. Don't think you can ignore it just because you're well meaning and knowledgeable.

We might have arrived

[Ratbert42]

I was stunned to find out that my company is bought some commercial on-site training from an open-source author. Even more stunning is that our VP of Development didn't need any extended begging and pleading.

or consulting

[Dink Paisy]

Read the latest "Joel on Software". His theory is that a focus on service and solution stacks is actually a sign of consulting, a form of software that is more painful and costly to its users and less profitable for the authors. My theory is that as open source software improves, it will become harder and harder to make money from it, since it will require less expensive customization and support.

Well . . .

[EraserMouseMan]

i have never seen that attitude (well only from some idiots, but i don't count them).

I see it every day. Especially lately with the Nessus news etc. These guys are working on Linux security for crying out loud and they get blasted by OSSers when they close their source just to stay alive as a company. Their competitors are using their generous/free code against them.

I don't rember reading a single post blasting the what the code-mooching competitors were doing. Get a grip /.ers!

Either start sending these valuable develoeprs donations, allow them to charge, or watch them all not have time for it anymore.

Open Source / Open Market

[Doc Ruby]

The real OSS service I'm looking for is an industry of companies which specialize in their stable of OSS projects in which they are expert. So I can buy programmer support for an OSS app from any of a number of groups, none of which "own" the SW or the project. I'd like to do a DB query on a CVS repository, to check what code has been contributed by such orgs offering service. Not just as a consumer of the SW, but as a developer, when I want to include an OSS package in my own project, but not enough to gain the expertise.

That kind of service depends on the unique nature of OSS and its projects. It's a tremendous flexibility in available experience, with which proprietary source SW could never compete. And such an ecosystem also represents an extremely productive marketplace for new code shared by everyone. Produced by a "third party" with interest vested more in the quality of the public OSS package than in any tricks keeping it proprietary, despite the rules.