Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Open source and fossilization

September 19, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Open source and fossilization

TAGS: Open Source

I met with one of Alfresco's first customers yesterday, checking in to see how its implementation was going. As we talked, I was shocked to discover that the customer's perspective on our product was a year old. We've added significant new functionality and performance enhancements since the customer bought a support contract, but they didn't know about them....

This despite a monthly newsletter, occasional emails, and a direct pipe to our engineers. All for naught.

One big advantage proprietary companies have over open source vendors is sales people. Sales people make their living by hanging out around a customer's office, upselling and cross-selling. Open source companies, reliant as we are on the product to largely sell itself, don't. While many open source customers are, by definition, heavily involved with the technology, many aren't. They buy into an open source product because it works better than a proprietary dinosaur. They expect a more passive relationship with the technology and its vendor.

So how do we keep such customers' perspectives of our technology from fossilizing? One key way is through our system integrators.

SIs can be an open source vendor's "feet on the street." They can demonstrate the evolution of a project, and help the customer maximize value from it. By effective partnerships, then, open source companies can keep their customers current with product innovations, without wasting early development dollars on sales.

A good SI can be trusted with one's customers to this degree because their fate is closely tied to the vendor's. If the vendor sinks, the SI does, too. Such SIs are a huge boon to the open source company that wants to stay close to its customers.

Posted by Matt Asay on September 19, 2006 03:55 PM

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