[Zope] A Tale from IBM land...

[Chris McDonough]

Chris Withers wrote:
> 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!

This is unfortunately also a two-way street.  Often companies *dont
want* to offer 100% of the value.  People feel comfortable buying things
from companies that sell MS or IBM, becuase they perceive that MS or IBM
will be around for a while, and "nobody ever got fired for buying
[insert solution here]".  The 60% company can go away and they won't be
out of business.  Thus that 40% is very important to them.

The customer doesn't realize:

 1) That open source makes that argument largely irrelevant.
    But we don't really have the marketing muscle to fight this
    battle, at least where it needs to be fought.

 2) That there are hundreds of consultants familiar with Zope/[insert
    other open source solution here] that can take over that 100%
    when the one who sold it to you goes out of business.  This
    is also a marketing problem.

Grassroots, "line-level" employee support is most of the support that
open source has got, and that's its marketing engine.  The engine has
been incredibly successful.  More successful than anyone could have
hoped.  But it's still a fact that people don't like to buy something
they haven't seen on TV...

Think of a high-level executive making a decision about buying a content
management system like a foreigner on a business trip in a strange
land.  Everyone is bugging him to eat at their restaurant.  He
recognizes none of the names of these restaurants, and doesn't really
even understand what kind of food each restaurant is selling.  But then
he sees the McDonald's "golden arches" (MS/IBM).. and he knows that.  He
knows McDonalds isn't the best food, but it's a safe bet in a foreign
country when all he wants to do is eat and move on.

You need to understand this mentality to successfully sell open source
software to the OSS-unaware.  You need to produce the soundbite version
of what a particular solution can do for the company, and don't get
religious about it, just compare the features and the prices of the
"McDonalds" solution to the OSS solution, and let the folks come to
their own conclusions.

- C