A bad experience with RedHat and Novell

Posted May 10, 2007 4:20 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190)
In reply to: A bad experience with RedHat and Novell by hazelsct
Parent article: A think tank's view of free software

> Out of five outfits, only two replied to me: one was a one-man shop (not an option if you hope your business stays around longer than that one man), and the other didn't seem to want to do business with such a small firm as ours.

So your problem with the former was exactly the same as the latter's problem with you? Mrs Be-Done-By-As-You-Did wants a hug...

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A bad experience with RedHat and Novell

Posted May 10, 2007 9:08 UTC (Thu) by mjthayer (guest, #39183) [Link] (7 responses)

Surely someone looking for business support is allowed to make decisions based on business considerations. In this case, the only available option was found to be unsuitable from a business perspective. Are you suggesting that business perspectives should be ignored here? Or that free software is fundamentally incompatible with business?

Quid pro quo

Posted May 10, 2007 14:30 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (5 responses)

I think lysse's point is that your business considerations (to the one-man shop) were as valid as the business considerations of the second company (to your small business). Put another way, a small company that doesn't want to do business with another small company deserves to be disregarded by bigger companies. Will you disregard Windows if all MCSE's that want to do business with you are one-man shops?

Quid pro quo ignores market reality

Posted May 11, 2007 1:58 UTC (Fri) by hazelsct (guest, #3659) [Link] (4 responses)

So what you're saying is that a small business should not expect to get professional-level support in OSS. Which is why we are not getting any traction in the SMB sector. Like I said.

To answer your question, we already have a 100-strong company full of MCSEs doing business with our four-person shop, which sends techs out to our site on an hourly as-needed basis (installation, troubleshooting, etc.). And that four our TWO Windows users (one Mac, and me on Linux)! And there are multiple other businesses waiting in line behind them who could take our contract. They can set up a Windows server for us any time we say the word. But thanks in large part to me, we want(ed) to give Linux a try.

What a pathetic attitude. If this is how the community feels SMBs should be treated, then OSS will never get anywhere in this sector, while Microsoft continues to eat our lunch. And in the US at least, that's a very big sector to just walk away from.

Quid pro quo ignores market reality

Posted May 11, 2007 6:09 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (3 responses)

You did not answer my question, and it seems you did not understand my point, which is: maybe professional-level support can be provided by a one-man shop as well as by a 100-strong company. I don't know why there are so few RHCEs in your area and frankly I don't care, but maybe it is because SMBs don't want to do business with those who are small. On purely business concerns, the few big shops have to concentrate on the big companies which require their services.

What your comment suggests is that there are untapped business opportunities waiting for entrepreneurs to give them support, but we already knew that. So people, get certified and open your support company!

Quid pro quo ignores market reality

Posted May 11, 2007 12:46 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link]

Note, though, that "There's a great opportunity here" doesn't really respond to the "think tank" point - support is a problem, still.

Quid pro quo ignores market reality

Posted May 11, 2007 20:28 UTC (Fri) by hazelsct (guest, #3659) [Link] (1 responses)

You're right, I didn't answer your question, sorry. We wouldn't consider a one-man Windows support shop either, for the same reason. In case I wasn't clear, that reason is: there's no redundancy in case something happens to the one man. Whether that's retiring to Jamaica, or getting hit by a bus, or having to spend a week taking care of a sick relative, any of these things which took this person away would present a major problem for us if something went wrong.

Our clients don't depend on us in the same mission-critical day-to-day manner, so there's no valid comparison there.

And I agree that there's a real opportunity here...

Quid pro quo ignores market reality

Posted May 12, 2007 0:43 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Thanks for clarifying that. I have long thought about setting up a support shop for Linux machines, as I'm sure other LWN readers have; in fact it is only by chance that I did not do it three years ago, but the possibility is always there. Knowing the conditions of "our" future customer base is always valuable, so it was not an idle question.

Maybe a federation or cooperative would be a better model for one-man operations; probably a middle-sized company would inspire more confidence into customers.

A bad experience with RedHat and Novell

Posted May 11, 2007 23:58 UTC (Fri) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

> Surely someone looking for business support is allowed to make decisions based on business considerations.

Ah, yes - criticism IS prohibition. *shakes head in dismay*