OSS In the Office

[tickticker]

Don't fool yourself Jim.... Many vendors (especially MS and Apple) have a=
=20
large and devoted following.  Apple is legendary for it.. and MS goes to=20
great lengths to develop their communities, online and off.

anthony

On Wednesday 16 April 2003 12:37 pm, Jim thought they were smart and wrot=
e:
> Your analysis is all too true, Austin.  But it also points out a
> business opportunity for a group who is willing to support open source
> installations.  They might need to do some marketing to get in the door=
,
> but they have a huge support base to draw on, which most proprietary
> vendors do not have.
>
> On Thu, 2003-04-17 at 09:43, Austin Godber wrote:
> > Here is a snip from a slashdot thread today (the one about MS Office)=
=2E
> > I am wondering if this is a good summary of business attitudes, and i=
f
> > so, how should opensource deal with it?
> >
> > ----
> >   The reason that they [businesses] won't touch OSS is because they
> > perceive risk to their careers in going with it. It's not that OSS is
> > more or less buggy, it's a matter of them having to take the blame if=
 it
> > goes badly. If you buy from a proprietary software vendor, then you'v=
e
> > got somebody that you are paying, that you can yell at if things go
> > wrong. The decision to use their software won't ever be questioned, a=
nd
> > either they'll be made to fix it, or another vendor will be chosen. T=
he
> > decision to pick that vendor will likely never be questioned as long =
as
> > the manager can show some due diligence in making the decision.
> >
> > On the other hand, if they choose an open source product, if there is=
 a
> > bug, there's nobody to pass the buck too. So the manager is taking on
> > the burden of responsibility if that software does have bugs in it.
> > He'll be perceived as exposing the company to unnecessary risk just t=
o
> > save a few bucks.
> >
> > This is part of an overall attitude problem in corporate america.
> > Managers, generally, suffer more for a mistake than they gain for a
> > success. Success is expected, that's doing your job. Failure is
> > incompetence. Of course failure caused by an effort to get the compan=
y
> > ahead of the game is still failure, so why take the risk. Hire
> > contractors, and pay for software vendors because if there is a mista=
ke
> > you just dump the blame onto them, cut ties, and your job is secure.
> > ----
> >
> > Austin
> >
> >
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