FW: Web/intranet developmen and open source critique

[Kantor, Gary]

Title: RE: Estco & UHHS

I am charged with organizing the redesign and hosting of our anesthesia department web site and intranet. It's build vs buy. We do not have the skills or resources in-house to produce an attractive site with content management features, intractivity, usage tracking, etc. So I've asked several outside companies to quote on the project. Below is the response of the best of these vendors to my question about their use of open source tools. The list may find these comments interesting.   Question 1: Does anyone have access to the Gartner, IDC or Forrester reports that are mentioned below and which allegedly have found open source technology to cost more?   Question 2: Are there any companies out there selling these services who have adopted an open source approach to development? If so, how do you find them?   Gary Kantor   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  <snip>............"The phased approach is usually the best. It allows a great opportunity for our clients to learn about us, and for us to learn about their goals. It also lets us fine tune a web initiative that will have the best ROI for our clients.   As far as open source tools. We have looked at many open source products and tools extensively. Currently we use open standards such as XML for data exchange. As far as Zope, Python, PostgreSQL, Perl or even PHP goes, we like those environments and languages but have found that despite them being free and open-source they often end up costing more.   The most challenging aspect of using open source technology is it is difficult to find support for the products. Although for each technology a few companies sell support for, they are ill equipped to provide the type of documentation or fixes that are needed. Additionally, because no company is responsible for the technology, no company is accountable either.   Finding developers for the open-source technology is also difficult, and therefore often more expensive. As many Gartner, IDC and Forrester reports have concluded, it is often many more times expensive to build and maintain applications on open source technology because of the additional cost in developers and/or support.   Lastly, the tumultous market has cast other shadows on some of the open source movements. Companies such as VA Linux,  Red Hat and several others have run into substantial financial challenges. The last thing we would want for our clients is for applications to be built on open-source platforms supported by companies that are not financially viable.   Our typical suite of technologies includes SQL Server 2000, Win2k, and ASP/ASP.Net Although the MS suite of products does have licensing fees, the large development community, stability of the technology and future growth of the technology make it a very cost-effective environment. Because the technology is backed by Microsoft it will always be easy to find support and/or developers to maintain, and upgrade applications. This insures that any investment will see substantial returns.   In addition, the cost of development on MS-based platforms is lower because of the number of code samples, documentation, and development tools is substantially larger than those for open-source platforms."  </snip>   _____       -----Original Message----- From: Kantor, Gary Sent: Wed 1/30/2002 5:26 PM .......... I would also like you to give me an idea on your general feelings about open source-based site development and hosting. I am becoming very interested in tools such as Zope, OIO, MySQL, PostGreSDQL, XML, python, etc. from the point of view of both cost and quality. Do you use any of these or other open source components? GK