How OSS Models Put Vendor Support on Solid Ground

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How OSS Models Put Vendor Support on Solid Ground

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday March 6, 2006 @11:42PM from the just-add-water dept.

Jane Walker writes "How can vendors offer free enterprise software and be financially strong enough to provide commercial support? It's all about hybrids, says expert Julie Hanna Farris. Find out how to determine if a commercial open source vendor has the chops to support products in the long term."

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Question. by AnonymousPrick · 2006-03-07 00:00 · Score: 5, Interesting

FTFA: If vendors don't have tangible proof points available and customer references then they're not giving you enough information.
What do you do if you're just starting out?
There's been a couple of times when I've mentioned F/OSS to business owner as a potential addition or replacement to his IT infrastructure (MySQL, Open Office) and as soon as they hear "free" they get this funny glaze over their eyes. Small businesses LOVE the word "free", but I think they equate "free" with junk - "you get what you pay for" attitude. I think they're also afraid of things not working, which equals no revenue coming in. This is a hurdle that I can't seem to get over.
Yeah, I'm a shitty sales guy.

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Re:Key point by DogDude · 2006-03-07 00:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

But for OSS vendors, I think the most important aspect is that the client gets a horse in the race, so to speak. As a paying client, they get a seat at the table, even if by proxy, and have a voice in what will happen with the product. They become Somebody. True, paying a developer to participate is another way - and even more influential - but if your business isn't software in the first place that is just not feasible. Paying a company to, in effect, pay developers by proxy is the next best thing.

That only works with small products. If I'm paying genericJoeSupportGuy for Apache support, that doesn't mean that I get to influence Apache in any way. But you'd also get this with small products with closed source, as well. If you're one of only a few customers, they'll help tailor it to your wants and needs.

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quality of service by Device666 · 2006-03-07 00:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

There is no guarantee or formula to predict how long a company / product will exist, closed or not.

A business advantage is that even a halted open source project can be revived, it is always for you to use. And if some company thinks something is missing they can add it. So if you are a company dependant of open software, you want to have a thriving community behind the specific products you use in the first place, besides some support of some OSS-business.

Support first
Professionals don't neccesary care about "free" they want to have a certain level of support. So for OSS companies it's just how they can compete with the support of it's closed source rivals. I think this explains why a lot of business people still haven't really grasped the concept of open source.

product second
For a lot of people "open source" is a relatively new term. They have problems understanding it, let alone knowing what to do with it. Product / market share comparisons are a better basis to promote open software for someone who has never heard of it.