Thank you for sharing this Thomas....it is brilliant...being able to articulate the advantages of open source in a "sales" scenario as clearly as you have in this example is of tremendous value.
Joseph Thomas Beale wrote: > But in the end the argument that they understood was this: > - every piece of software has a total cost over its lifetime. It is > commonly accepted that the build cost to first deployment is roughly 30% > and that the cost of maintenance and enhancement over the remaining life > of the product is 70% (obviously this varies but it's a pretty common > figure given in the literature). > - so you (the customer) are paying for 30% of the total cost, upfront > for a generic component. > - we (the builder) pick up 70% of the cost, in an incremental ongoing > fashion. > - You get free access for the life of the product. > > Now, if we just charge reasonable contracting rates to get the thing > built, the price the customer pays is the price of building it. But what > they get is a lifetime of use, including all updates, upgrades etc etc. > > This is all obvious to people on this list, but not to most corporate > customers. I don't know if this particular way of justifying open source > in contracts is commonly used or described in the open source > literature, but for convincing hard-nosed businesses who are most > interested in monetary arguments, it works quite well. > > - thomas beale > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> You can search right from your browser? It's easy and it's free. See how. http://us.click.yahoo.com/_7bhrC/NGxNAA/yQLSAA/W4wwlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
