[Marketing] OSGeo benefits - Found word(s) risk free in the Text body

[Miguel Montesinos]

Hello,
 
I would suggest some more valuable criteria for government.
 
* Technology independence.
* Investment synergies among different adminstrations. 
 
The first is a question of knowing what the software does and to be able to adapt it. Yes, it's not just an intention, it's been done a lot of times; you can customize a software to your needings, by using external professional services, or by training internal resources.
 
The second is a strategy I've put into practice: Let more than one administration share their investment so that they can maximize the money they spend, as well as get future improvements as any partner needs some features.
 
>From my point of view, there are some other factors:
* Cost bound investment "maintained over time"
* Ability to try full versions before decission taking
* Fast knowledge about strategic decissions (in healthy OS communities)
 
BR
 
Miguel Montesinos

________________________________

De: marketing-bounces at lists.osgeo.org en nombre de Cameron Shorter
Enviado el: mar 27/04/2010 22:35
Para: Jo Walsh
CC: marketing at lists.osgeo.org
Asunto: Re: [Marketing] OSGeo benefits - Found word(s) risk free in the Text body



Jo,
For government, I suggest focusing on government's selection criteria
for projects, which is usually:
* Value for money
* Low Risk

Yes, Open Source licenses are free, but when promoted that way, Open
Source often comes across as being "cheap". Also, the Total Cost of
Ownership for Open Source and Proprietary, when compared head to head,
is often similar, or even favours the proprietary software.

The value for Open Source comes when you consider the extra benefits
open source brings:

In particular:
* If a government invests Open Source software, they can give it away to
the government's community groups, and citizens, for free.

* When you give away your software as Open Source, the international
community will likely use it, and then improve it, which in turn
benefits the local government. (This can be factored into purchasing
selection criteria as Opportunity Management, which is the same as Risk
Management, but in reverse. Ie, identify what could go right, then put
enablement strategies in place to ensure that it happens).

You were after some material for presentations. I'll forward some slides
through for this 15 minute overview of Geospatial Open Source here:
http://blip.tv/file/2748984

I'll send when I get to work in ~ 4 hours.

Jo Walsh wrote:
> So, benefits to local government of using and supporting open source
> (in general) and OSGeo in particular -
>
> 1) Save money
> 2) Grow small local business
> 3) Share knowledge with peer organisations
> 4) Be part of a wider governance culture
> 5) Rapid access to innovations
> 6) Preservation through open standards
> 7) Outreach through open data (starting again at 1 for open data)
> N) ?
>
> I should add more to the list, thinking this is a talk to management
> types who will be technologically aware but not that into details of
> process.
>
> Any advice much apprec,
>
>
> jo
>


--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Director
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com <http://www.lisasoft.com/> 

_______________________________________________
Marketing mailing list
Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/marketing/attachments/20100427/728de916/attachment-0001.html