[TriLUG] Novell & Microsoft - sleeping with the enemy

[Shawn William Taylor]

Right, that is awesome. Most companies that embrace OS (I Think an example 
used in an earlier rebuttal was TiVo) never actively tell people they do. 
If more non-techie consumers knew what a large part of their lives open 
source already played, they would be more open to it as an all around 
thing that works, and can help them in other capacities. The note I 
responded to had a small dialogue that played a business manager 
(non-techie) as a moron because he chose a main stream solution instead of 
an open source solution that is just as good. I don't think that is a fair 
portrayal of a business management decision making practice. That manager 
has to be accountable that when he makes this investment it will return 
lower TCO, greater Performance, help to streamline BP etc. Choosing a 
solution that does that and *That he's comfortable other people in his 
position are choosing* is a smart business move (IMHO).

The point I was trying to make in my original post is, in my experience, a 
company like yours is the exception and not the rule. (around being so 
publicly open about helping people to integrate OS solutions in to their 
business operations) I try everyday to integrate open source technologies 
as much as possible in our company. At the end of the day, our company 
does work on most major platforms from Linux to unix to as/400 to Window$, 
and as such we need to be specific about the underlying technology we 
display it on. We can't try to sell a windows based solution giving a demo 
on Linux because the guys that write the app think it looks cooler on a 
penguin desktop. It contradicts the solution we are trying to pitch. We 
can, go in and try to sell our Java based solutions on a Linux desktop, 
and we do. I am not saying that one is any better than the other, 
certainly they have all played a part in the history of technology. I 
think they all have strengths and weaknesses. I think open source 
solutions are just as capable and robust as Microsoft solutions or Novell 
solutions or IBM solutions. (Anyone use IBM Director? Java based, 
painfully slow, great tool)

I just don't think *most* companies selling/supporting/servicing open 
source solutions are as well managed as the example below.

Keep in mind, this is all just my opinion. Who am I?

rleathers at americanri.com wrote:

Just another example here:

My employer, American Research Institute, has adopted a business strategy 
of
selling services with the goal of helping our customers extract business
value from their technology investments.  In the overwhelming majority of
cases, this is built around open source software.  JBoss, MySQL, Liferay,
Alfresco, and Moodle are all important items on the menu, along with
applications we have built in-house, and a few commercial titles we have
licensed.

We actively market the fact that we use open source, and claim to be able 
to
help our customers realize greater flexibility and productivity by making
the most of what open source is all about. 

ARI is almost 5 years old now.  The company has been on board with this 
open
source play since day 1.  Revenues have more or less doubled every year
since the doors opened and we are now about 50 employees strong.  The
strategy works.  Our customers love it.  I can assure you that our sales
people do indeed make some cold calls.  Explaining our open source 
strategy
is a big part of how we differentiate ourselves in our marketing message.