Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 17:43:17 +0200
From: Stephan von Krawczynski <skraw@ithnet.com>
To: Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
Cc: coyote@coyotegulch.com, lm@bitmover.com, dwmw2@infradead.org,
       jgarzik@pobox.com, lawrence@the-penguin.otak.com,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Troll Tech [was Re: Sco vs. IBM]
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On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 08:06:16 -0700
Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> wrote:

> Your model is fine, there is nothing wrong with it but there isn't a lot
> right with it either.  You can't really grow your business under that 
> model.  Why?  Because you are essentially a consulting shop and that 
> isn't going to generate the revenue you need to hire more people, build
> more things, get more consulting.  You can keep yourself going but not
> make enough to get more people going.

Hm, you shouldn't possibly hire in management of one of the several SAP
consultant companies ;-)

> Instead of coming back at me with the premise of "well, I'm eating so my
> model is OK" how about coming back with a plan that says "Here's how we
> make an open source based business put Microsoft out of business".  That's
> reality.  You are just playing around on the edges, there is nothing 
> wrong with that, but until you have a viable plan that competes with the
> big boys let's stop kidding ourselves, ok?

Well, Larry, probably you should not wonder about not getting suggestions how
to put M$ out of business by consulting for a bitkeeper-like software
application. I guess that wouldn't really work out.
If you are looking for competing with M$ you should call up one of the linux
distributors and merge with them. It does not really look like RH or SuSE do
all that bad (to name examples). And I do believe they could earn a lot more
bucks if (even) more focus is put on consulting.
To my knowledge a consulting company can scale just as well as a (software)
manufacturing company. For sure this type of business is more complex, but
nevertheless I can very well see more income per customer by service contracts
or the like. I mean this is an original M$ statement: "compared to the TCO the
prizing of our product is not interesting", which basically reads: you have to
spend the big bucks _after_ you bought the software...
Which sums up to the point where M$ and open source people basically tell you
the same thing, only you are no believer (don't take this as critics).

Regards,
Stephan

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