I think this article is geared around a business analysis perspective. If I'm going to build a software product oriented business, do I provide products that will be built on open-source code or on proprietary products.
One question I have to ask myself regarding my own business is "What will someone $$$ PAY $$$ for?". One question I have to ask myself regarding a customers business when I'm architecting a solution for them is "What solution will return the biggest return on investment (ROI)?". The two questions sometimes can have 180 degree different answers. Example: A possible answer to #1: People that purchase Microsoft software will tend to PURCHASE additional products that work with that software. People that work with open-source software will tend to DOWNLOAD additional products that work with that software. This sould ensure a steady profit base for my company. A possible answer to #2: I have a staff of senior java/php developers who tend to develop customer specific solutions. I'll start with an open-source solution and let my staff tailor it for our customers based on a SDLC process. This should minimize upfront programming and allow the team to spend time on customer specific issues. This should allow for a better ROI for the project. Example 2: Answer for #1 again: I'm a consulting company, companies that use open-source technologies will tend to need help supporting them and will not want a full time employee to do that task, I should tailor my company toward supporting very popular open-source projects. My company should be able to be successful with this vision. Answer for #2 again: The customers company mainly writes Visual Basic clients for SQL2000. As the architect, I want to create enterprise solutions for the future. I'm going to choose VB.Net as the technology since the developers skill are taylored closer to that. This should minimize training, maximize quality of the solution and allow the solution to grow in the future. This is the lower risk for a good ROI. Also, I liked what Clayton said as well. We (TriJUG) are here to ensure that developers who use Java have a place to discover/review new advancements in Java. The rest of the "better than X" issue is totally up to the situation. I hope with the examples above stated this clearly. - Greg Jones ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Jody Ricker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: "Research Triangle Java User's Group mailing list."<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 05 Mar 2004 23:31:27 -0500 >On Fri, 2004-03-05 at 19:49, Joseph R. McVerry wrote: >> I went to the page and it had three advertisements - all Microsoft. Do >> you think there might be a connection? > >Not really, Microsoft buys advertising space wherever they can find it >-- including open source sites like Sourceforge. The thing is, for every >article that sings the praises of Linux and open source, you can find an >another that talks about loyalty to Microsoft and the dangers of >non-proprietary software. All we are doing is talking in circles about >how A is better than B when we should be talking about how Java is >better than everything else! > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Juglist mailing list >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >http://trijug.org/mailman/listinfo/juglist_trijug.org > _______________________________________________ Juglist mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://trijug.org/mailman/listinfo/juglist_trijug.org
