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It is almost impossible to pitch software to the government unless it also comes with enterprise-scale customer support. 9 out of 10 times I’ve been part of th
by TrackerFF 2y ago
It is almost impossible to pitch software to the government unless it also comes with enterprise-scale customer support.
9 out of 10 times I’ve been part of the buy-side, proprietary software has won due to the support. Even more so when the end users aren’t technical people.
If the software doesn’t come with support options from the vendor, you’ll have to look into third-parties for that - which means another entirely own contract, and set of people to involve.
- shiroiushi 2y agoSure, but with open-source software and a third-party support contract, if you get mad at the support vendor, you can get a contract with someone else without having to change your software stack. I don't see how tying yourself to a single vendor is advantageous at all.
- glasss 2y agoUnfortunately I don't think the market of third party support vendors for open source software is robust enough to have enough competitors that can provide the same quality (or at least promise of quality) as traditional vendor support from MSFT or another big company. You can say the market might emerge if the large corporations or government agencies started shifting that way and generated demand for it, but those entities aren't known to take risks.
- shiroiushi 2y agoWell, even now we already have Red Hat (IBM), SUSE, and Oracle providing support for enterprise customers for the Linux OS. The US government is a huge customer of Red Hat.
- NekkoDroid 2y agoI don't remember where I read it, but wasn't like a majority of relativly big companies operating servers customers of Red Hat? I do know my mother is a customer with her business
- intended 2y agoAs a government ? Getting another contract ? If the press and opposition don’t get you, the time to get a new contract will.