Comment Re:A few questions you should ask before choosing (Score 1) 57
"The misconception that open source solutions are free often ends up costing an organization a lot more in the long run because they never took the time to do an initial assessment of what they actually expect from the product."
Isn't this Microsoft's favorite anti-open-source argument? Do you have any (non-Microsoft-generated) data to support that? When you talk to people using, or considering using Eclipse (with or without crystal), do you warn them to carefully consider these "hidden costs", and take a closer look at Visual Studio, or some other proprietary offering? As the PM for crystal for Eclipse, aren't you trying to "have your cake and eat it too" with this argument? Business Objects supports MySQL, eclipse, tomcat, and red hat linux. For some reason, Business Objects seems to anticipate demand in their base for open source solutions at all levels of the stack. Well, every level except BI. What dynamics are driving Business Objects to use open source in so many places, and which of those dynamics DON'T apply to reporting or BI, and why?
As far as "carefully considering requirements before a project", anyone interested can go to sourceforge and download reporting, analysis, dashboards, and the whole BI platform from Pentaho, try it out, and see for sure whether it meets their needs. It's not "forget your requirements - use this because it's free", it's "carefully consider your requriements, download the entire open source BI suite and try it out for free. And by the way, ask your proprietary vendor to allow you to do the same with their whole suite."
I googled "open source costs more". The first hit was this study from the UK:
http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/publications/doc uments/BEC5606_Full_report18.pdf
This study seems to show that, in their experience, they saved money by using open source, and not just on licenses.
The second hit was from CIO Magazine, in an article called "The Myths of Open Source."
http://www.cio.com/archive/030104/open.html
It's all anecdotal, but the real users they talk to cite savings, and even larger-than-expected savings from using open source.
"A lot of companies are making a lot of money off of providing support and solutions for open source software. "
Who? JBoss, who is huge compared to your average open source company, has revenues estimated at $40M from support and services. While that's "a lot of money" by my personal standards, and is a little less than 10% of what Business Objects makes from support, if the UK study is to believed, it would mean that their customers still spent significantly less money than they would have using a proprietary offering. Put another way, JBoss is providing huge value to a very large worldwide community for $40M total, less than 10% of what Business Objects makes supporting BOBJ customers.
"Business Objects includes indemnification and support in all of their products"
Are you sure that's accurate? If I buy crystal reports developer, I get a real support contract from Business Objects? I can call in and get tech. help and report bugs? In looking at the online documentation in the online store, numerous features and benefits are mentioned, but nothing that I saw implies that you get support on the less-than-$7,500 editions of crystal. Your post implies that I would, but I think that's wrong.
I agree with you that people should consider many factors, and that an open source solution won't always be better.
-Lance
Pentaho
Isn't this Microsoft's favorite anti-open-source argument? Do you have any (non-Microsoft-generated) data to support that? When you talk to people using, or considering using Eclipse (with or without crystal), do you warn them to carefully consider these "hidden costs", and take a closer look at Visual Studio, or some other proprietary offering? As the PM for crystal for Eclipse, aren't you trying to "have your cake and eat it too" with this argument? Business Objects supports MySQL, eclipse, tomcat, and red hat linux. For some reason, Business Objects seems to anticipate demand in their base for open source solutions at all levels of the stack. Well, every level except BI. What dynamics are driving Business Objects to use open source in so many places, and which of those dynamics DON'T apply to reporting or BI, and why?
As far as "carefully considering requirements before a project", anyone interested can go to sourceforge and download reporting, analysis, dashboards, and the whole BI platform from Pentaho, try it out, and see for sure whether it meets their needs. It's not "forget your requirements - use this because it's free", it's "carefully consider your requriements, download the entire open source BI suite and try it out for free. And by the way, ask your proprietary vendor to allow you to do the same with their whole suite."
I googled "open source costs more". The first hit was this study from the UK:
http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/publications/do
This study seems to show that, in their experience, they saved money by using open source, and not just on licenses.
The second hit was from CIO Magazine, in an article called "The Myths of Open Source."
http://www.cio.com/archive/030104/open.html
It's all anecdotal, but the real users they talk to cite savings, and even larger-than-expected savings from using open source.
"A lot of companies are making a lot of money off of providing support and solutions for open source software. "
Who? JBoss, who is huge compared to your average open source company, has revenues estimated at $40M from support and services. While that's "a lot of money" by my personal standards, and is a little less than 10% of what Business Objects makes from support, if the UK study is to believed, it would mean that their customers still spent significantly less money than they would have using a proprietary offering. Put another way, JBoss is providing huge value to a very large worldwide community for $40M total, less than 10% of what Business Objects makes supporting BOBJ customers.
"Business Objects includes indemnification and support in all of their products"
Are you sure that's accurate? If I buy crystal reports developer, I get a real support contract from Business Objects? I can call in and get tech. help and report bugs? In looking at the online documentation in the online store, numerous features and benefits are mentioned, but nothing that I saw implies that you get support on the less-than-$7,500 editions of crystal. Your post implies that I would, but I think that's wrong.
I agree with you that people should consider many factors, and that an open source solution won't always be better.
-Lance
Pentaho
