Astidian Blog

It is quite interesting to note that making money in the Open Source Subscription "pay for support" model is much harder for the Software Vendor than the traditional "upfront" model.

The reason is the following:

OLD model :
Charge a lot more upfront for your software: included then is a slick looking IT sales man with a nice BMW, Vendor visits by high profile consultants, free proof of concepts, free educational seminars, etc etc

Its a very "nice" way to do business- the vendor is happy: he makes a ton of money very quickly.

The Open Source Subscrition vendor model:
Cash flow is over a period of time (bad for the vendor - good for the customer) and the customer usually only commit when they go into production. The model does not lean to the conceptual "free hand holding" including the fancy BMW salesmen or free visits. So for the vendor the sale is much harder - they have to compete against the feel-good sale and need to offer a product that is a REAL benefit. After all - the customer now evaluates the software directly and has complete transparent access.

Many IT vendors are not used to working for their money and those that are making a success of it are certainly working much harder and their product need to be top-notch.

So ultimately the customer is winning.

I think I prefer the new way - I want to have a choice, I also want vendors to be working for their money and I want to see value for my money. Contrary to belief- Open Source can be evaluated as a real option for an enterprise - maybe just maybe, the IT manager now also has to prove to his management he can make a rational decision.