[Zope] A Tale from IBM land...

[Chris Withers]

> Chris, I take it that you were not thrilled with Websphere.  Could you
> say more?  cheers, Luby

Well, I was being taught how to sell it rather than write with it so
probably not, and my comment was probably out of line.

It was just weird being back in an environment where people charge licenses
and you have no control over the application your business depends on.
All the people on the course (IBM SSM and e-Business Application Framework -
yes folks, I'm now "IBM certified for e-Business" - certifiable more like)
were VARs.
VALUE added resellers.

It occurred to me that a pretty powerful argument to persuade VARs the value
of open source is this: When they're being VARs for IBM, Microsoft, or any
other closed source, license-fee based company, they value they add is only
a percentage of the total sale.

For example, if they sell a "solution" that envolves IBM hardware, M$ and
IBM licenses (say 40% total value) and then their consultancy for
development and customisation (ie 60%), they're only actually adding 60%
value to the relationship.

On the other hand, if they provided an open source solution that utilised
the customers existing hardware, the only thing they would be charging for
would be their development time. So they would be adding 100% value to the
relationship!

What do other people think?

cheers,

Chris