Stanford Teaching MBAs How To Fight Open Source 430
mjasay writes "As if the proprietary software world needed any help, two business professors from Harvard and Stanford have combined to publish 'Divide and Conquer: Competing with Free Technology Under Network Effects,' a research paper dedicated to helping business executives fight the onslaught of open source software. The professors advise 'the commercial vendor ... to bring its product to market first, to judiciously improve its product features, to keep its product "closed" so the open source product cannot tap into the network already built by the commercial product, and to segment the market so it can take advantage of a divide-and-conquer strategy.' The professors also suggest that 'embrace and extend' is a great model for when the open source product gets to market first. Glad to see that $48,921 that Stanford MBAs pay being put to good use. Having said that, such research is perhaps a great, market-driven indication that open source is having a serious effect on proprietary technology vendors."
Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of Microsoft's strategy. Except for the "judicious improvement," and it doesn't seem like it will work for them in the long term anyway.
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Make money and make a reputation through making and marketing GOOD STABLE WORKING software. Don't try to do it by making a big bag of shit and blocking anyone trying to compete.
Oh, hang on, yes, now I see the potential problem for the business types...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
What makes me laugh is that there is such an "Us Vs Them" tone in all of it.
Right. And the discussion below won't have a similar tone... :)
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
What makes me laugh is that there is such an "Us Vs Them" tone in all of it. It's like the nice business people think that all the open source guys are just waiting to kill their babies!
Wait, thats not our ultimate goal? I dedicated my life to a lie!
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
It's like the nice business people think that all the open source guys are just waiting to kill their babies! I mean settle down.
I agree, they really have nothing to worry about in this regard. The open source baby killing project is not even in beta yet, and there are compatibility and dependency issues that will keep it out of the linux kernel for quite some time. The closed-source world, especially Microsoft, is years ahead of OSS when it comes to infant termination software. But if there's anyone out there in slashdot-land who would like to lend a hand please grab the sources from freshmeat and pitch in!
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
Our Mulch-o-Tron 5000 satisfies over 9000 best business practices and is ISO infinity certified. What better way to protect your company from the legal dangers of open source?
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
I always wondered why they called it that...
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
The closed-source world, especially Microsoft, is years ahead of OSS when it comes to infant termination software
Well... my copy just failed with a Vaginal Ring of Death... I demand a 3 year warranty and diapers for my newborn...
Cheers!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I have argued this over and over, but you never listen. The baby killing doesn't belong in the kernel. It should be a user space program. Keeping the code in the kernel removes the user's ability to remove the code if they are morally opposed to baby killing, whereas others would prefer to set different limits on how long child processes are allowed to continue before being killed.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And just where does this "freshmeat" come from? Hmm?
Much of it from gnus it seems.
Unfortunately they're overexploiting that so I suspect that nowadays most of the meat is not even real gnu, but generic gnu-flavored beef instead.
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Well, they *have* been known to kill their wives. :-(
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"What makes me laugh is that there is such an "Us Vs Them" tone in all of it. It's like the nice business people think that all the open source guys are just waiting to kill their babies! I mean settle down."
See, I think they are focusing on the wrong businessmen.
When are the other professors in the department(s) going to offer a course teaching how businessmen can use Free Software to make profits for their company? Never mind those guys in the other course who want you to reduce your bottom line for their
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Doctors: Please help your patients with their ailments.
Taxi-Drivers: Please take your fare to where they would like to go without taking too many detours.
Software Developers: Please make good software.
Hey! I'm a professor [youtube.com]!
Re:Reminds me of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
You are of course wrong in the business sense:
Doctors: Keep your patients sick but convincing that they are improving if they just keep coming to them.
Taxi-Drivers: Take the longest route possible, always.
Software Developers: Lock in your customers in every conceivable way.
Re: (Score:3)
Doctors: Keep your patients sick but convincing that they are improving if they just keep coming to them.
This is a true story - about fifteen years ago I got X-rayed after an auto accident, and the doctor, looking at the pics, remarked that I had arthritis in my spine. I said yes, I've had it since I was a teenager.
"When are you going to come up with a cure for that?" I asked him.
"We don't do cures," he said, "the money's in treatments".
Re:Investors have to question and reject this. (Score:5, Interesting)
There is always there is always the flip side course for 99.99% of other non-software businesses, which is far more justified as a MBA course.
All those objective that open source software fulfil and core subjects for the majority of businesses.
Open source software, managing software overheads more effectively, their profits are your costs.
Open source software, minimising retraining and re documentation, only implement worthwhile changes.
Open source software, avoiding supplier forced costly upgrades and managing them at your pace.
Open source software, using publicly audited software, hidden software faults cost you money.
Open source software, avoiding data lock in, don't be forced to pay for your own data over and over again.
Open source software, avoiding training costs, open source software for education, save on taxes whilst saving on overheads, double plus bonus.
Communicating open source advantages (Score:3, Interesting)
There is always there is always the flip side course for 99.99% of other non-software businesses, which is far more justified as a MBA course.
Exactly. While it isn't actually all that hard, most non-slashdot reading folks I've ever discussed open source licensing with (admittedly a small sample) grossly misunderstand the terms of open source licenses - especially the GPL. They usually think they give away their copyrights when in fact just the opposite occurs. As a community, we advocates of open source have done a poor job communicating why open source is an advantage to those willing to take the plunge. There are unfortunately a lot of misc
confusion (Score:5, Insightful)
The professors advise 'the commercial vendor
So many obviously smart people confuse proprietary with commercial. The two are orthogonal. Back in the 90s this might have been academic, but there are now many commercial open source companies. Get with the program.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's hope for a balance. I see more *buntu and Macs used by CS students. In the great scheme of things, MBAs will learn that there are multiple possible models for success in development organizations.
Proprietary software makes money. Don't confuse making money with success, however. Like other methods of making money, proprietary software is transient in nature, just as open software is.
Re:confusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm. My MBA Program talks rather fondly of Open Source Software, for the most part. They just make you analysis the benefits in a business perspective, and try to decide when an Open Source product is worth it, or getting a closed source app may be a better overall value. About 1/3 of the MBA class are Computer Science or Engineering Majors for their Undergrad and know about Linux and open source and use them. There are also differernt classes of MBA as well.
While the degree is the same.
You have Ivy League Full Time MBA. These tend to make the biggest Jerks of bosses. These Kids think they are special and entitled and tend to treat people under them like dirt while they bring the company to the ground.
Next it is the Ivy League Part TIme MBA. These guys often have real business experience and know what it feels to be the little guy. But being from such a well known school they still often get high end jobs much quicker then their experience shows and still kill the company.
Full Time normal college MBA. Yea they are Jerks too. However companies wont put them in top positions to kill the company, until the get the real experience.
Finnaly the Part Time Normal College MBA. These guys are not in it to be the CEO just a manager. Tend to be less of jerks and start as low managers and work they way up. Tend to be the guys you can deal with.
Re:confusion (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, what's been taught is "evaluate the software on its own merits, and how it will affect future growth," which is pretty standard "be a good manager" ideas but is reassuring to hear in a classroom setting. I'm one of the more tech-savvy students in my classes, but it's nice that it's not all just "buy this and that and you'll have an enterprise-class system for your small business."
Re:confusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Open Source benefits form economies of scale just like other tools and machinery. Eventually it becomes cost effective to have motor mechanics to service your fleet of vehicles rather than being done by a third party. In which case buying vehicles for which detailed schematics are available would be advantageous. I think people get too emotional regarding the open/closed software debate. Sometimes it's just easier to buy a hammer than a hammer making kit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You have Ivy League Full Time MBA. These tend to make the biggest Jerks of bosses. These Kids think they are special and entitled and tend to treat people under them like dirt while they bring the company to the ground.
Next it is the Ivy League Part TIme MBA. These guys often have real business experience and know what it feels to be the little guy. But being from such a well known school they still often get high end jobs much quicker then their experience shows and still kill the company.
Wow, someone here sure sounds a little frustrated.
You fail to consider that what you call "Ivy League Full Time MBAs" have an average age of 27-28, meaning generally 5-6 years of business experience. Also, given the tough requirements to get in to one of the top 5-10 MBA schools (I'm sure you weren't only referring to Ivies, but also for instance Sloan, Stanford and Kellogg), these are already overachievers by the time they start their MBA. They've already climbed fast, worked their asses off, and gained
Re:confusion (Score:4, Funny)
- Are extroverted. Make an effort to show themselves as friendly to people in general.
Kill them. Kill them with fire.
Re: (Score:3)
I've seen studies that show that there's a much higher incidence of sociopathic disorders in management like that as compared to the "regular" workers. There's a reason they climb high... they don't care who they step on to get up there.
Re:confusion (Score:5, Informative)
Not only that, but these are companies you have actually heard of. Sun Microsystems, IBM, and Google are all companies that produce open source software and actually make money from it. Not to mention pure open source companies like Zope and Zend.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What the heck is Google doing in that list. They pretty much exclusively make money from AdSense and their search algorithms. Care to point me to where I can download the source for that? Nope, you don't even get to see the object code. You have to hand over your data to them to process in their super-closed system.
Re:Like what? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess there's Gears [google.com], Android [google.com], their patches for Wine [google.com] and MySQL [google.com], as of late there's also Chromium [google.com] (with the v8 JavaScript engine [google.com]). They probably have more, see Google and Open Source [google.com].
All in all I think they have some 190 open source projects/components/tools/whatchamacallit [google.com], a lot of these are Google oriented but there are some more generic ones. Maybe a result of their 20%/80% thing.
You can't deny that Google, with Chris DiBona [wikipedia.org] as their open source program manager, certainly _contributes_ a lot to open source projects or what is regarded the open source community at large. From project hosting (Google Code), to Summer of Code, to hosting events, to individual sponsorships, to participating in standardization organizations (OASIS, W3C), to funding foundations (such as Mozilla).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The author also doesn't understand (or refuses to acknowledge) the different definitions of "free," and as such, misses some of the major points of why more and more people are using FOSS.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Good point. Most people don't know that for $250 a year you can get Desktop support from Canonical, the company who owns *buntu trademarks. They'll even do engineering for you for a fee.
Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Knowing the enemy's potential avenues of attack is a wonderful asset. It makes counter-attacking and defending much easier.
Read the paper here (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, did you try reading what you linked to? It's the appendixes / supplements to the journal articles, and are utterly useless.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nit-pit: you generally need or want maintenance/support on your proprietary software, so it's not a one-off cost to acquire it, but a yearly or three-yearly license/maintenance fee. Thus, comparing an 80k purchase to an 80k salary isn't quite fair. However, that's irrelevant.
Most paid programmers work for consultancies that hire out their services for relatively short-term contracts in order to solve particular business needs. i.e. you don't go out and hire a full-time permanent programmer in order to write
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
because open source companies don't want to make money? if so somebody better tell MySQL AB and Trolltech. they're doing a horrible job of it.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't software authors have a right to get paid... just like any other profession?
Yep, they sure do. I am one. And I get paid. And I only write open source software.
I provide a service, and that is to make their systems work the way they want them to. Most code is either too specific to the business to provide a competitive edge to somebody else, or its so generic that exposing it to the world can only help improve it.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not neccesarily. This argument is commonly abused. Capital is needed for the production of certain (a few, certainly not all - as we know) creative works. Commercial films and software would be nothing like what they are today without capital to pay the developers for all their efforts. It is therefor logical to charge a fee for reproduction in order to repay the debt that development incurred. It's also not too impolite to try to make a profit.
There is a point where all these things start to go wrong. These companies will all start to try to maintain monopoly status, and sabotage competition in any way possible. They will hold on to a work which is long out of date (particularly the movie industry, but software companies also do this) and continue to milk the population long after the initial debt has been made and several people have become filthy rich. They will completely ignore market situations and the customer's needs and charge whatever they want for their products.
Software is one of those products that does not require a lot of equipment to produce, just a lot of time. There are plenty of people in this world who have way too much time on their hands (damn I wish I was one of these) and invest it in free software. Over the years free software has evolved to be surprise competition in the software market which used to be (and still is, depending on your views) the playground of Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Adobe, ect, ect. Since there is now competition, it would seem logical for the price of this commercial software to drop - but to avoid that, we apparently designed a whole college course on how to break all the rules and play unfair.
I threw away another couple mod points to write this :/
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Whenever you pay more than the distribution cost for a piece of software, it is overpriced. Zeros and ones does not cost anything to produce, more than the duplication and transfer cost.
Programmers don't need to eat?
Falcon
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll deliver all the zeros and ones you could ever want, but if you want me to make them do something, you're going to have to pay.
Hell, atoms are everywhere. Lots of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and trace elements free for the taking! Why pay anyone for anything?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As others have said, generally a company hires a software developer to develop some software that will make the company's life easier - not so they can profit from the distribution of that software.
But that's not always appropriate. General-purpose tools being a good example. How useful would Photoshop, for example, be if it were written only to fulfill the needs of one particular company?
There's also the case to be made that software developed in-house for one specific company tends to be the most awful software of all. So, I think software in general is better off because some companies make their money from producing and distributing general-purpose software. It also provides F/OSS with some goals
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Competition is good (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd actually be disappointed if information like this weren't being taught in Silicon Valley!
Re: (Score:2)
There's a reason why people talk about fair competition.
This is not.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This course isn't about how to compete in a market. It's about how to control one... if you control the market, you're in a pretty good position to be "unfair" to your competitors - and to that end, this course appears to encourage that
Zed Shaw is right: fuck the ABG
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I call it American-style competition. Instead of making a better product or giving the customer what they want, they work to crush the competition and give the customer no choice but to buy their product. The purpose of competition in markets is to give the customers what they want at the best possible price.. as soon as your goals vary from that you're no longer a part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
Re:Competition is good (Score:4, Insightful)
But realize that to the huge majority of the world, and certainly to the majority of business executives, there is no moral stigma attached to proprietary/closed software. Just as the GPL exists to enforce the wishes of the copyright holder on all downstream consumers, there is nothing morally wrong with a company offering its products for sale on its own terms - specifically with no rights to the source.
Given two morally equivalent choices, won't business people always opt for the one with the greater return on investment?
Proprietary software has paid my mortgage for many years. I am skeptical that open source would generate the same standard of living for me.
Re:Competition is good (Score:4, Insightful)
You forgot Ubuntu.
You also forgot: 2X, 64 Studio, Absolute, AbulÉdu, ADIOS, Alinex, AliXe, ALT, Ankur Bangla, AnNyung, Arch, ArcheOS, Archie, Ark, ArtistX, AsianLinux, Asianux, ASPLinux, Astaro, Aurora, AUSTRUMI, B2D, BackTrack, Bayanihan, BeaFanatIX, BeleniX, Berry, Big Linux, BinToo, BioBrew, blackPanther, BLAG, Bluewhite64, BOSS, BU Linux, Burapha, Caixa Mágica, cAos, Càtix, CCux, CDlinux, Censornet, CentOS, ClarkConnect, Clonezilla, Clusterix, clusterKNOPPIX, College, Comfusion, Condorux, Coyote, CRUX, Damn Small, DANIX, DARKSTAR, Debian, Deep-Water, DeLi, Devil, Dizinha, DNALinux, Draco, Dreamlinux, dyne:bolic, Dzongkha, eAR OS, easys, eduKnoppix, EduLinux, Ehad, Ekaaty, eLearnix, Elive, elpicx, ELX, Endian, EnGarde, Epidemic, ERPOSS, Euronode, Everest, Evinux, EzPlanet One, Famelix, FaunOS, Fedora, Fermi, Finnix, Fluxbuntu, Foresight, Freedows, Freeduc, FreeNAS, FreeSBIE, Freespire, Frenzy, Frugalware, FTOSX, GeeXboX, Gelecek, Gentoo, GentooTH, Gentoox, GEOLivre, Gibraltar, gNewSense, GNIX, gnuLinEx, GNUstep, GoblinX, GoboLinux, gOS, GParted, Grafpup, Granular, Greenie, grml, Guadalinex, Hacao, Helix, Hiweed, Honeywall, How-Tux, IDMS, Impi, IndLinux, Inquisitor, INSERT, Insigne, IPCop, JackLab, JoLinux, Julex, K12LTSP, Kaella, Kalango, KANOTIX, Karamad, Karoshi, KateOS, K-DEMar, Kiwi, Knoppel, Knopperdisk, KNOPPIX, KnoppMyth, KnoSciences, Komodo, Kubuntu, Kurumin, Kwort, L.A.S., LFS, LG3D, Linguas OS, LinnexOS, Linpus, LinuxConsole, Linux-EduCD, linuX-gamers, Linux+ Live, LinuxTLE, Linux XP, Litrix, LiveCD Router, LiVux, LliureX, Loco, Lunar, Magic, MAX, Mayix, Media Lab, MEPIS, MilaX, Mint, Miracle, MirOS, MoLinux, Momonga, Muriqui, Murix, Musix, Mutagenix, Myah OS, myLinux, Myrinix, Mythbuntu, MythDora, Nature's, NeoShine, NepaLinux, NetSecL, Nexenta, Niigata, NimbleX, Nitix, Nonux, Novell SLE, NST, nUbuntu, NuxOne, Olive, OLPC, Omoikane, O-Net, Openfiler, OpenGEU, OpenLab, OpenLX, openmamba, OpenNA, openSUSE, Openwall, Ophcrack, Oracle, PAIPIX, paldo, PapugLinux, Pardus, Parsix, Parted Magic, PCLinuxOS, PC/OS, PelicanHPC, Penguin Sleuth, Pentoo, pfSense, Phayoune, Pie Box, Pilot, Pingo, Pingwinek, Pioneer, Plamo, PLD, Poseidon, pQui, Protech, PUD, Puppy, QiLinux, RAYS, Red Flag, redWall, Resulinux, RIPLinuX, ROCK, Rocks Cluster, RoFreeSBIE, ROSLIMS, rPath, RUNT, Sabayon, SAM, SaxenOS, SchilliX, Scientific, Securepoint, Shift, sidux, Skolelinux, Slackintosh, Slackware, Slamd64, SLAMPP, Slax, SliTaz, SME Server, SmoothWall, SoL, Sorcerer, Source Mage, StartCom, STD, StressLinux, STUX, SuliX, SuperGamer, Swecha, Syllable, Symphony OS, SystemRescue, T2, TA-Linux, TEENpup, TFM, Thinstation, Thisk, Tilix, TinyMe, tinysofa, Topologilinux, Trinity, Trisquel, trixbox, Truva, TumiX, TupiServer, Tuquito, Turbolinux, Ubuntu CE, Ubuntulite, UbuntuME, Ubuntu Studio, UHU-Linux, Ulteo, Ultima, Ultimate, Untangle, Userful, Ututo, Vector, Vine, Vixta.org, VMKnoppix, Voltalinux, Vyatta, Webconverger, White Box, Wolvix, Xandros, X/OS, Xubuntu, Yellow Dog, YES, Yoper, and Zenwalk.
All of which are mentioned at Distrowatch. I'm possibly including a couple projects that aren't actually Linux in there, but if there's 20-30 such items in that list, that's still 300 Linux distros. That's not competition; that's just a couple hundred collections of guys who decided to make their own distro cause they didn't like some quirk or another of how other distros are set up. That's just fragmentation with no benefit to the consumer, just a sea of incompatible layouts, setups, and package management formats.
Choice is great. But having a couple great, consistent, stable choices is better than having several hundred ones ranging from excellent to shitty. Variety for its own sake is pointless, from a practical standpoint at least.
Re:Competition is good (Score:4, Insightful)
And again, they're all competing distro's... competing for attention and mind share.
The fact that there are so many is proof that competition is alive and well in the world of linux distros. You can construe the large number any way you want, but logic dictates that 2 or more separate groups/individuals offering similar products are in competition with each other. Doesn't matter if they're commercial vendors or not...
You also neglect the fact that due to the GPL, advances made in one of these 300+ distros are generally able flow into all the others. The only cost to the others is that they must learn the ins and outs of said advance... if they think they can improve on it they usually will... and again, everybody benefits from the competition.
One last thing: LSB - ever heard of it?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Choice is great. But having a couple great, consistent, stable choices is better than having several hundred ones ranging from excellent to shitty. Variety for its own sake is pointless, from a practical standpoint at least.
Survival of the fittest is as practical and natural as it gets. There is no need for anyone to be involved in removing the "unworthy" distros from the market. The market will take care of this.
I'm sure you do not feel a need to destroy bad paintings even though there are millions out there? You just don't need to buy them. The person who creates a painting probably feels that some value is added to his/her life in the process. Also... there just might be someone crazy enough out there for whom a particul
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's comedy marketing of snake oil.
Re:Competition is good (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
.
I wonder.
Microsoft seems to be weathering the financial storms rather well - and there are others which come to mind.
With investors fleeing from the corporate bond market, this seems an odd time for Microsoft to be borrowing money, but the software maker is planning to do just that, taking advantage of its status as one of the tech sector's bluest blue chips.
The Micro
Re: (Score:3)
I see no problem with teaching people A method to compete in the market place.
Competition is good, yes, but "divide and conquer"?
I'd actually be disappointed if information like this weren't being taught in Silicon Valley!
And I'm kind of disappointed the benefits and liabilities of cooperation isn't being taught.
Falcon
resistence is futile (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:resistence is futile (Score:4, Funny)
There's a reason Macs outsell Linux [today.com].
Re:resistence is futile (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, because a few million Mac desktops vastly outnumbers hundreds of millions of Linux embedded devices, servers, desktops and virtual appliances.
Re:resistence is futile (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not following their own advice? (Score:5, Funny)
They should have left their research closed. Now anyone can take their research, reverse engineer it, and repackage it under a Creating Commons license.
Re:Not following their own advice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Clever post, but check out this subtle fact: the authors are absolutely practicing what they preached in that very article:
market segmentation: you get the watered down summary for free, but have to pay for a journal subscription to get the actual article
market seeding: give this version away for free (and I suspect that they'll even send a .pdf of their related working papers) in hopes of capturing customers for the more expensive version (a.k.a. attending their b-schools, or hiring them on as consultants).
In reality though, academic theorists are absolutely the most open source colleagues I've ever had. As long as you adequately cite them, you'll be their bestest friend if you embrace and extend their material. When tenure and promotion decisions are to be made, b-school deans might not be so savvy as to know how good your publications are, but they can easily see how often you work has been cited. Don Jacobs, former dean of Kellogg, said it best, "Maybe we can't read, but we can definitely count."
Awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm happy to see that the suggested strategies are ones which carry significant drawbacks. Segmenting markets and keeping everything closed does indeed give you control, but it also slows the very network growth that makes products become successful. And it frequently leads to user frustration (because of, for example, DRM, or the lack of support groups, or the inability to find or construct fixes/hacks as needed).
This is good news in the sense that any strategy to fight open-source means that you emphasize the gap between open-source and closed-source products: the open-source product's advantage is the openness, the community, the ease of distribution, the non-naginess, the network effects, the hackability... and the more closed the closed-source products try to be, the more these items become product differentiators, which the open-source product can point to as big advantages.
So, I do hope closed-source projects go ahead and implement those user-hostile strategies. It will only serve to make open-source products look that much better by comparison. As other posters have pointed out, there is no fundamental divide between "open-source" and "commercial". So I would think the better strategy for MBAs thinking about open-source is "if you can't beat 'em--join 'em". Or in other words, why get involved in closed-source business ventures when an open-sourced equivalent inherently leverages network effects?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
These guys are basically selling snake oil to the gullible end of the obsessive control addict market.
Stanford - Sun - Hello (Score:5, Interesting)
Stanford, the birthplace of SUN, one of the renowned distributors of a once true and mighty closed and proprietary Unix, that almost fell off the face of the planet in part of it starting to become irrelevant compared to open sourced OS's and systems (Linux, BSD, etc).
The SAME Sun, which has now open sourced almost their ENTIRE IP portfolio in the Open Solaris project, thereby bringing relevancy BACK to Solaris and it's suite of products.
The same Sun which utilizes hundreds of code donors to it's projects, and big communities around storage, ZFS, etc.
Closed, commercial systems have a place, and many of them do well, but when markets change, can they change quickly enough? Lessons show us that they cannot change quickly enough. Or do the closed proprietary systems try and change the market the suit their needs?
Look at IBM, HP, Sun, and even Dell now relying on open *nix systems driving huge sales numbers.
The markets have changed, its those who do not follow trends, or fight the trends who become irrelevent.
The open source model will probably change in a decade, or a century and it too will have to change.
The paper is just a way to appeal to stiffley business suit class of people afraid of change.
It would be nice... (Score:4, Interesting)
if they also taught a course on open-source economics. I.e., how you can make a successful business through the selling of services. It would be useful, since I get the impression that a lot of the folks who are open-source advocates really don't have much business sense. That's not meant as an insult--I know my business skills are mostly lacking. It's a big part of why I wouldn't start a business myself. It might have the added benefit of giving some of the commercial==closed-source people some ideas on where it can make sense to use open-source in their own businesses. I work with a guy who can't understand why anybody would ever contribute to open source. He sees it as people giving away valuable brain juice for free.
It's a research paper from February (Score:5, Insightful)
A recent paper on this topic by Mendelson, coauthored with Deishin Lee, PhD â(TM)04, now a faculty member at Harvard Business School, is not a how-to manual for hard-pressed executives. Rather the researchers have built a theoretical model explaining the choices open to commercial firms. âoeAlthough open source is the lead example of our work, the principles certainly apply to other businesses, including, for example, the media business,â says Mendelson.
Heaven forbid that somebody actually study how businesses choose between free and proprietary software! That's of no good whatsoever! And of course free-as-in-speech definitely does not extend to a university allowing its academics to publish material which might be bad for open source. Clearly Stanford should've had these two men killed and fed to rabid, pestulent chipmunks, rather than allow this affront to reach the press.
natural order (Score:4, Interesting)
I think we've been in that penultimate step for a while now. Here's hoping Ghandi was right =)
Re:natural order (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing I don't like about that quote is that it only predicts the sequence under the assumption that you'll win.
First they ignore you, and many simply remain ignored.
If not they laugh at you, and many are still ridiculed.
If not they fight you, and many are fighting or losing.
If not, then and only then will you win.
Honestly it's not much of a progress meter. What I think is the real progress meter is that open source software is becoming more and more usable and it's not something you can "undo". You can't drive it bankrupt, you can't buy it up, you can fight the distros and the outer layers but you can't stop the underlying OSS development. Even though it feels glacier-slow at times I've seen how far it's come in the last ten years - ten more years like those and it'll be slowly rolling in almost anywhere. No huge splashes, no revolutionary releases, no "year of the Linux desktop" just slowly pushing the others out.
Bad Paper - No Clue - F (Score:4, Interesting)
The two strategies presented are not strategies against software.
The first, embrace and extend is a play against already established standards, and usually is applied to protocols and APIs but not to package software. Most successful E&E campaigns have been against standards implemented in closed source systems. Most of MS success was before the rise of Open Source as a viable model. Generally E&E fails against open source competition (see firefox, Apache, Linux v Unix, etc...).
The second was just a trashcan "make a better product" and "hide it from the competition" kind of suggestion. Oh, and segment your market better... problem is that it's assuming that your open competitors can't make better products or segment better.
Summ. author has an open source block on shoulder (Score:5, Insightful)
The slashdot summary author (mjasay) appears to see the world through a lens which makes the developers of open source software victims of some nasty MBA conspiracy.
The academics who wrote the underlying article go out of their way to say that their writings are not a 'how to' manual for MBAs, and that open source software is only one example.
The article is simply a recent take on 'How to compete with free,' an important MBA marketing topic for decades. 'How to compete with free' can be considered a subset of how to compete in general, and the gist of any marketing solution to 'how to compete' will be based on building value in the product.
One method to build value is to increase switching cost through lock-in. Even free / advertising supported services do this: my.yahoo, iTunes, gmail, hotmail and countless others.
If you read the underlying academic article, you just might notice that most of the tools presented now are analogous to the tools presented at Sanford in the early nineties to the MBAs who eventually went on to Coke and Pepsi to fight the scourge of FOSW (Free Open Source Water).
Open source water survived just fine. As long as open source software continues to offer value, it will continue to thrive.
Marketing is marketing. MBA courses are MBA courses. Same shit, different year.
Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd rather get my MBA from someone who gives me the tools to actually compete in the market place.
What like better products, lower prices and such? I'm sorry, but then you're trying to become a product/process engineer. MBAs are all about seeing business opportunities - how can they take the skills we have and make profitable products out of it. It's all about finding markets or niches where margins are high and competition is low and keeping it that way so you can turn a tidy profit. OSS is nothing special in this context, the next article can just as easily be on how to break in and capture a market s
capitalism (Score:3, Insightful)
it's capitalism - as long as iot's within the bounds of the law it's all about competition and squeezing your competitors out
That's not what capitalism is about, capitalism encourages competition. What you're proposing, monopolies [deoxy.org], is what what Adam Smith the Father of capitalism was opposed to. He didn't even like patents calling them a necessary evil [adamsmithslostlegacy.com]. To Adams capitalism provided a fair or equitable and optimum outcome for everyone.
Falcon
Don't be paranoid, open sourcers (Score:4, Interesting)
The headline is misleading. The MBA students aren't learning how to fight open source as an abstract concept; they're learning what to do when your business produces a piece of proprietary software that competes with an open source product.
I'm all for open source and use a lot of open source apps, but I don't believe that such a dilemma is always most profitably answered with "embrace open source yourself."
Step back for a minute (Score:4, Interesting)
Before deciding to fight open source and to lock your customers into dependence on your company so that they cannot escape, step back and ask yourself a question. Do I want to make money by doing good for people, or by deceiving and manipulating them?
There are basically two different ways to run a company. One is to make your customers happy and strive to serve them as best you can, trusting that they will reward you for it with loyalty. The other is to trick people somehow, by being dishonest, selling them something they don't need, locking them in to your service, or sticking them with extra fees. Both approaches can be profitable, but only one can actually make the world a better place.
I love companies that take the former approach. For example: NewEgg.com (Low prices, honest customer reviews posted even if they are negative, excellent customer service.) Monoprice.com (For the same reasons.) Netflix (Fast service, easy to use website, honest communication and refunds for rare service outages.) My local coffee shop (High quality drinks that are much better than the chains, friendly staff, good food with custom menu items that change frequently.)
On the other hand, there is no shortage of examples of the latter approach. Best Buy (Selling HDMI cables for $50-75 which can be purchased for $5-8 on Monoprice.com.) Most places that sell glasses (for excessive markups. An online market for glasses at vastly reduced prices is now springing up.) Most cell phone providers (for charging excessive fees, making it difficult to switch providers or move phones to other plans, and designing their plans to overcharge customers who don't guess correctly how many minutes they will talk and at what time.) I could go on.
It's probably easier to make money going the evil route, or at least it requires less originality. But I hope that at least a fraction of MBA students would be interested in something more than the bottom line of profit.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I perfectly understand.
I work at Starbucks, that corporate coffee chain. You know, they spend more on medical insurance on us 20+hr a week employees than they do on beans?
But aside that, we're told at sbux one major rule on how we conduct our business: "Just Say Yes". No matter what. As an example, we've had a dog show going on during the weekend. A judge came on by and ordered a venti (large) coffee with 1 inch of steamed 2%. Cool. Rule says charge for only =>4 oz. milk. One of our 17 yr old partners st
I know the real motive! (Score:5, Funny)
You're doing it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
In the spirit of http://xkcd.com/463/ [xkcd.com], commercial software that competes like this will slowly lose the battle.
Instead of fighting for the same turf as open source, they should be finding markets that aren't served by open source. Niche markets and new markets are great places for commercial vendors. Generic applications used by everyone that are constantly reinventing the same wheel will be open sourced and the market will shift.
Don't try to make a better web browser or office application. Instead, focus on the pace maker control system or credit card fraud detection system. Focus on things that are worth money to a narrow market and don't have a lot of competition from open source because their isn't demand for bored developers to build a cheaper mouse trap.
Stop doing it wrong.
Prostitute Professors (Score:3, Interesting)
Prostitutes always forgo morality in favor of money, and there's not much money in free open-source software.
Lesson #1 for would be generals (Score:3, Interesting)
Lesson #1: Pick your battles
Lesson #2, method dealing with the enemy while occupying a strategically disadvantageous position: see lesson #1.
Does anybody believe that the proprietary/free clock will be rolled back to the late 1980s, when printing licenses was like printing currency? Of course not. Open source is here to stay. That doesn't mean there aren't opportunities to make money in software, both in competition with and by using free software. It seems to me the smart business leader chooses the mix of competition and cooperation. Google hasn't done too bad, after all.
Where it's tough is when you have a company with a cash cow. Microsoft. ESRI. Oracle. The cash cow may be doomed, but ever year it is kept alive represents money, a great deal of money.
So it makes sense to position your product, say Windows, against the open source "competition". It really boils down to one thing: compete. Give your customers reasons to keep buying your product and cut prices to keep them from moving away from your products. There are now free as in beer versions of Oracle and SQL Server, just to establish a bulwark on the low end of the product position.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:sissy (Score:4, Funny)
Re:sissy (Score:4, Funny)
Google says [google.co.uk]: No results found for "Improve your jihad: nuclear weapons".
GASP! They nuked the article! CENSORSHIP!
Re:I'm curious (Score:5, Insightful)
The 90s called, they want their argument back.
Many programmers are paid to work on free software these days.
In fact, the problem isn't finding jobs, the problem is finding programmers.
Re:I'm curious (Score:5, Insightful)
it is my understanding that most of these paid OSS jobs are funded by proprietary software.
That is what you understand wrong.
You imagine people will keep working on software out of altruistic desire forever? Many people I know are in this profession solely for the high salaries. Once OSS peanut-salary is the norm, they will dump this profession like a cheap rental suit.
I dunno where you get your information from, but again, you're completely wrong here. There's no difference between the salaries of programmers who work on free software and the people who work on proprietary software.
I'm just figuring you're a troll now.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sigh. You're understanding of the software industry is so pedestrian that it is impossible to have a serious conversation with you.
Those little boxes on the shelves in Walmart are not the software industry. They're not even a significant percentage of it.
He had a legitimate question... (Score:3, Insightful)
You had a snide answer. Oh, and it's "your understanding", not "you're understanding".
He didn't say anything about little boxes.
By the way, AC, in answer to your question, and to actually illuminate rather than just tell you that you misunderstand:
Most software is written to serve the in-house needs of large-ish corporations. They need to manage their business, and to be competitive their business has to differ from other businesses serving similar needs. So they have large quantities of software to mana
Re:I'm curious (Score:5, Insightful)
You realize, of course, that long before FOSS was big, over 80% of software written was never sold. It was developed for internal consumption. That's a huge piece of the pie.
As for software sold to others, have you ever heard of "support contracts"? That's where folks like RedHat make their money. Even Microsoft makes money on support. They make a lot of money off of certifying people to work on their software too.
And then there's sponsored development. This is where the two paragraphs above intersect. Suppose Company X really like some package Y, but it's missing some feature it really needs. It can code it itself (the old internal development model) and spend the money internally, or it can hire someone outside to implement the feature. Not an ounce of altruism there. The FOSS license ensures that the feature is able to become part of the overall product. Company X derives direct benefit, and likely has strong influence over the shape it takes.
IBM doesn't send zillions of patches to Linus out of altruism. They send patches because they want Linux to behave better and have the features they want so they can ship more servers. Freescale doesn't send patches to Linus out of altruism. They do it because they want Linux to run well on their embedded chips so that more people will buy them. And so on.
You've got this vision that this is all a big charity. No, it's enlightened self interest.
I just "earnt" a Computer Science PhD... (Score:4, Funny)
Glad I never got one of those fancy degree's, they obviously do not teach spelling or grammar.
Perhaps Mexican universities don't teach IT classes in English. Looking at many of the posts on /. US universities don't teach English well either.
Falcon
Re:I'm curious (Score:4, Insightful)
In the long term, what happens if all software ends up being free?
In the present, all software is free http://www.ubuntu.com/ [ubuntu.com] http://thepiratebay.org/ [thepiratebay.org]
Wouldn't there cease to be many programming jobs where there once were?
No... Most software would still be developed in-house. What will cease is companies who can make a bloated program that is badly written and gain millions for it.
Wouldn't that lead to lower paying programming jobs in turn leading to less cs graduates and lower quality software?
No. It would only serve to increase the quality of code as the fact that it compiles does not mean that it is good code. Open source software has no secrets, the quality would go up because anyone could fix it.
I know some companies do alright supporting products they've written and give away freely, but I can't see that extending to applications beyond some mission critical business system type things.
Ever heard of the Geek Squad? They make a fortune supporting products that they never even written and most are trivial applications (Windows, iTunes, etc)
I've long wondered things such as this. OSS sounds great at a glance, but I really have a poor concept of where it will go in the long run. I like writing software, but I also like being able to pay my bills.
Where do you work now? Chances are, that company will still develop applications in house, not to mention that you would be in charge of changing various OSS programs to better fit the needs of the company.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is Slashdot so biased towards open source?
Becase many nerds have a 'hacker' mentality, where if they purchased a physical device they own it and can do anything they want with it, DRM, DMCA, vendor-lock-in and other such evils are viewed as evil because they inhibit hacking.