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Open Source — Selling Software That Sells Itself
mrcgran writes to mention that LinuxWorld is running an interview with Alfresco's Matt Asay. "Open source is changing not just how companies make software, but how they sell it. Alfresco's Matt Asay explains the new sales cycle and the skills that today's software sales people need to close deals. [...] 'But you know what? We have worked with Microsoft on interop without doing any sort of a patent deal; as has Sugar and MySQL and Zend and these other companies. We work directly with Microsoft for a customer of ours to insure SQL Server integration with Alfresco. Didn't have to sign any patent deal with them to get that done. We both had a mutual customer. It was in our mutual interest. We both wanted to make money, therefore we did it. But the patent thing is a complete smoke and mirrors, I don't want to say trick, but it has nothing to do with interoperability. No matter how much Microsoft may repeat that, it has nothing to do with interoperability.'"
I skimmed the article, and honestly, as someone who was a software consultant from the mid 90s, to 2002, it reads like a consultant from Informix of CA from the year 2000 wrote it.
First, you never have to sign a patent deal to use a database with your software. I worked for a company that if you used our stuff, you could use Oracle, DB2, Postegres, MySQL, or MSSQL. Just depending on what you wanted to do with it, and how robust your needs were.
And for a great deal of things, MSSQL, ORACLE, DB2, and Postregres hands Mysql its ass. For CRM services, Mysql is fine, so why pay for a database, when there is a free one that suits it just fine.
Our sales cycle, to major clients. Paramount Studios, Maxis, Sun Microsystems, never took 9 months. HP for about a 60k a month retainer deal was done in three. Did I mention we were a proprietary, closed source shop? Longest was Universal, but was a deal for USA Networks, Sci Fi, and Trio combined.
Also, the guy fails to realize if you do business with big business, sales cycle is longer. You have approval through departments, testing, etc.
Open Source has nothing to do with the sales cycle.
He says "is we don't commission our solutions engineers, our sales engineers, at all." then a paragraph later he says "And it means that we commission our sales people on renewals as well. " Thought you did not commission them at all.
The article is an advertisement, and the guy being interviewd should realize he sounds like a sales 101 pamphlet.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Open source developers need to brand their software more. Give it a personality and a cool logo, sell some mugs and t-shirts to generate some revenue, maybe sell an instruction guide (um, or maybe not). Throw up some YouTube videos that showcases the features (or better yet, the benefits for the user). I know it's not about the money with open source, but making a little cheddar on the side isn't gonna hurt.
Yours truly,
An open source fan
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Care to use the normal font next time?
"Nae Kin! Nae Quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna be fooled again!"
In most software companies Sales Engineers and Sales people (sometimes called Account Executives) are completely different roles. The former are technical folks who run the demos, answer architectural questions etc., while the latter are the "social engineering" folks who schmooze the client, identify the true decision makers, determine discounts etc. etc.