Ngigi Waithaka on OSS for Business

Enterprise Final Frontier
Ngigi Waithaka - Alliance Technologies - www.at.co.ke
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Why is it that open source solutions dont sell on the enterprise level?

What Enterprises consider when they are considering a solution:

Stability – Platform / CompanyExisting Infrastructure
How does the solution work with the existing resources / systems?
Implementation Skills
Most of the people who know the solution are techies – no people from other professions can actually implement the system.
Breath of solution
Rather than have many different solution – we want one solution that has everything - Windows
Integration / upgrade path
Most firms still use Win2K for servers. Why use Fedora which will be changed every six months?

None of these factors are about the technology. They are all about the solution – how good is it. In alot of these.. the marketing sucks or otherwise the lacking in the open source solution.

The Enterprise is not a price sensitive market – Cost is not really an issue. It is just one of the factors – often the last factor.

For the govt.. the price does not matter.. if a guy has been given 50m for an ERP and there is one that nears that amount – even if an open source solution is 2m, its a hard sell.

Kiania says we should provide a cost for licencing with the solution. If the commercial version is 3m, give a quote for 2.5m not 200k. Its hard to sell something that is free to someone who is ready to buy.

Market the solutions not as Linux based solutions but as solutions. Dont market the solution as a Linux CRM – but rather as a CRM. It will sell better.


Regards,
Tito