[Zope] Cost estimation for developing a Framework or CMS

[Kevin Carlson]

Martin,

In the past 5 years I have implemented various applications on frameworks
such as Zope, J2EE, .NET, etc. and have also implemented content management
systems from vendors like Interwoven and Vignette.  Additionally, I have
worked with Zope/CMF, Plumtree, Intraspect, and Epicentric in the portal
space.

What I can tell you about cost is this:  It depends on the requirements.
But for the purposes of example, I can compare the relative expense of a CMS
built with Zope/CMF and J2EE/Interwoven.

My current company spent nearly US$ 300K to develop a Zope/CMF system.
Since these are open source tools the tool cost is obviously zero, and the
cost includes only the salaries of the developers involved.  A similar
system with J2EE/Interwoven developed at a previous company cost over US$
2MM to develop due to software licensing issues, mandatory support
contracts, and additional developer salaries.  Please note that neither cost
includes hardware estimates.

The price differential for smaller projects will driven by the licensing
costs of commercial systems with that percentage decreasing as the
requirements for the system begin to grow.  At this point, the price
differential will be mainly driven by increased development cost (i.e.,
salaries).

Another point to keep in mind is that many J2EE platforms require an IDE to
be fully productive and many of those IDE's have a high per seat cost.

Please note that I am not anti-J2EE and have had good results building
systems with that framework in the recent past.  I just believe in using
tools that fulfill system requirements to the fullest degree with the least
amount of investment. After all, it's all about ROI to my customers and Zope
fills many of their needs much better and much more cheaply than popular
J2EE platforms.

I hope this helps,

Kevin

-----Original Message-----
From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of
Martin Gebert
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 6:34 AM
To: Mailinglist Zope
Subject: [Zope] Cost estimation for developing a Framework or CMS


Good morning!

This has nothing to do with Zope directly, but I'm in the hope one of
you might know a source for an estimation of the costs (some kind of
study or report; manhours/days/months as unit would be fine) for
implementing a Web Application Framework (like Zope, or something of a
smaller scale) or a CMS. Are there some figures of this kind available
for Zope, too?
I need this for stuffing my thesis a bit with numbers...

Thanks!

Martin



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