While I hate to admit it, this seems like a situation where it would be best to beat them at their own game.
I think the best way to address the lacking license fees and proposal absence is to generate some proposals with installation, hosting, training, maintenance, and administrative fees. A small for-profit organization could easily render something like Sakai a more viable product, as the associated fees would manage to undercut its more commercial and closed source opposition (I'm not familiar enough with the pricing for these products to make this claim, but I'm making it anyway...). Having support from a for-profit organization and associated fees is a must, otherwise you will always face an inquisition over TCO/ROI and any proposal will fail to be seriously considered by steering committee seniority (excuse the sweeping generality). However, when organizing the proposal around service and consulting fees that are tied to a commercial entity, the fact that the product offering is a FOSS product hardly needs to be explicit. It is just a line-item buried in the proposal (one which happens to have a $0 cost). It sounds like an organization wishing to market and support Sakai could do well if it simply monitored these requests and made some proposals. Also, as open source is gaining steam in education and software licensing costs are continuing to come into question, maintenance-only bids for such RFPs seem like they have a definite advantage. Are there any silver-tongued, Sakai-familiar, open source enthusiasts out there who are looking for a potential business opportunity? Probably a little bit of a pipe-dream, but I think this business model is going to continue to rise in popularity. -- Nicholas 2011/2/16 Jason Aubrey <aubre...@gmail.com> > Hi All, > > I have a question which is not exactly on topic, but is close enough that > I'm hoping some of you can point me in the right direction. > > So, I'm on my campus IT committee, the primary role of which is to oversee > the campus budget for academic computing. As a new member of this committee, > I recently had my first taste of the process by which my institution makes a > large software purchase. This is probably very similar to the process on > other campuses. > > In a nutshell: Needs are identified, requirements are specified and an > initial budget is approved. Then the rubber meets the road when the > university issues a Request for Proposals (RFP). Vendors reply to the RFP, > and a committee selects the top three or so to come to campus to give > presentations. Then opinions are polled, negotiations ensue, costs are > nailed down and a final selection is made. > > This process seems to me to very much favor commercial software over > open-source if for no other reason than the fact that most open-source > software projects don't have a national network of sales-people to respond > to RFPs. In the particular case I have in mind, for example, we wanted to > get a content-management system for Blackboard. Three companies responded: > Oracle, Equella and EMC - all very expensive products. Except for Equella, > all very inappropriate us (e.g. only equella actually integrates with > blackboard out of the box. The Oracle rep told us about how happy Coca-Cola > and Disney are with their product, but stared blankly when I asked about > support for SCORM). However, there are some very good open-source content > management systems out there, some specifically built with academia in mind, > but they never got considered and never would be considered under our RFP > process. > > We had a very similar experience acquiring a web-conferencing system for > the campus. (And on our campus Moodle and Sakai stand no chance against > Blackboard's sales army.) > > So, my question: how could this process be changed to give quality > open-source solutions a place at the table? At a minimum, for example, any > suggestions for how to get our RFPs noticed by open-source projects that > have the resources or corporate supporters to respond (even if we don't know > they exist?) Again, I realize this isn't exactly on topic - but I'm hoping > some of you might have some insight into this or maybe suggestions on where > to look. > > Thanks! > Jason > > _______________________________________________ > tos mailing list > tos@teachingopensource.org > http://teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos > >
_______________________________________________ tos mailing list tos@teachingopensource.org http://teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
