[Opensource] software industry trends

[Sandra Cann]

Thanks James for the insights. 

> I've actually been looking at content management specifically 
> for a solution at a church I attend, and when budgets are 
> tight 

Regards your looking at content management for this for a church, I presume
they are a non-profit serving the community - in which case you can get our
eContent object license for free.  Let me know if you are interested. 

We'll also be announcing an auction of eContent Source on eBay in the next
few days; a promotion to let the community set their own pricing and get a
license where budget is an issue. I think this should be very fun to see!

> They would have to remain just as competitive, if not more 
> so, than the commercial companies they compete with. Often, 
> the OSS projects get access to the developers who demand new 
> features and innovations but they don't get access to the biz 
> dev folks who are really the drivers of the overall vision. 

Excellent point. Through I think Jcorp is an exception in that regard. :)

> If an 
> OSS project wants to compete with the big boys, you need that 
> kind of reach or a services group to help push back at the 
> product and continually validate requirements and innovate.

Exactly. We have formed our JGroup Services which has a group of Expresso
Experts (major/core contributors Expresso Gurus) and lower cost Expresso
Associates to perform services. This group provides development, consulting,
training and support services; as well as can do contract longer-term onsite
services. For example this week we are completing a competitive arrangement
that will have an Expresso Associate onsite on a project site for 5-6
months. 

Over the years I have found that services have driven our software revenues,
an after a few years of focusing on software it has become apparent the
importance of returning to the service model. 

A lot of people don't know yet about our Expresso related services. 

> I can't imagine running a services group for a 
> framework *only*, without adding value to the customer. 
> Otherwise, you should consider training services not a 
> consulting services. 

Yes, we are now in the process of formalizing a training class - Tino is
heading this up. :).  Related to this I find often clients need people to
come onsite for knowledge transfer services to get their people up to speed
fast due to their own tight deadlines. Since this is specific to their
requirements a training class may be less effective so the consulting
services here shines. And of course the more applications that we have
onsite to value add Expresso the better we can serve our clients as well. 

I am being increasingly aware that there are Expresso based third party
applications out there. I encourage folks to contact me about listing their
applications on our third party applications page onsite. 

Thanks for the thoughts which are insightful for me. 

Sandra