Re: filtering for expensive customers?

> It is my personal belief that it works just the opposite way: the more
> in-house know-how that a customer has, the more likely is that he favors
> F/OSS.
>
> This is because the highly experienced customers like the added control
> that they can have over software when they use F/OSS, whilst customers
> that do not have anysoftware development skills of their own do not care
> of whether the software is open or not, as they cannot take advantadge
> of the Open Source nature of whet their are using.
>
> I think that this point of view can be supported by a couple of articles.
> One from Andrew Conry-Murray in Information Week stating the SMEs fear
> Open Source because they do not have the IT manpower neccesary to
> install and run Free Software.
>
> http://www.informationweek.com/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192300168&subSection=Open%20Source 
>
>
> And another study from Simula Labs that reveals that 33% of customers
> choose F/OSS because of the extra feeling of control that it gives.
>
> http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/?epi_menuItemID=989a6827590d7dda9cdf6023a0908a0c&epi_menuID=c791260db682611740b28e347a808a0c&epi_baseMenuID=384979e8cc48c441ef0130f5c6908a0c&ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&div=-762569457&newsId=20060816005229 
>
>
> So my conclusion is that the more developers a customer has, the more it
> favors F/OSS over closed source software, as developers tend to preffer
> F/OSS and influence the decision makers when the time to buy comes.
>
> Sergio Montoro Ten.
> hipergate.org
>
>> Hello All,
>>   I have recently struck a reflection that I consider interesting:
>>
>>  Postulate: Market analysts tell us that the #1 competitor to F/OSS
>> companies is internal expertise at the customer site: in short, if the
>> local crew is smart and attuned with the state of the software they
>> want to deploy, possibly even maintaining ties to the relevant part of
>> the community, they will deploy and support said software themselves.
>> Vendors might come in (much) later, and only because of a need to
>> blame-shift in very large/critical deployments (or in the mind of a
>> new director of IT operations ;-)
>>
>>  Given the premise above, it looks like more often than not F/OSS
>> vendors are vying for the business of the customers who do *not* have
>> sufficient on-site expertise - in other words, it looks like one might
>> be selecting customers coming from the most clueless part of the pool!
>>
>>  Why is this an F/OSS concern? Well, we all know that, in general,
>> engineers like to think that "customers suck", but this thinking
>> pushes it to a new level: while in the proprietary market, all
>> customers must purchase support from you, in our brave new world, only
>> the less clueful  need to. Besides the inherent higher stress this
>> places on the support crew, this is also expensive from a business
>> perspective - the ideal support customers are, obviously, the ones who
>> never need it.
>>
>>  Am I wondering about the obvious?  Perhaps I am being too
>> pessimistic. But if you accept the postulate, the thesis seems to follow.
>>
>>  Best-F
>>
>