I've got to defend management here. IME, they DO ask for evaluations,
reports, executive summaries, the works. But they only ask it for the
short list of products after an initial culling, often only between the
two or three finalists. How many commercial enterprise backup systems
are there on the market? More than that, I'm sure.
That's where marketing matters. Marketing isn't about selling. It's
about getting on the short list. THEN you can let the product sell
itself on the merits.
Bacula has strengths and weaknesses in that area.
Strength: viral marketing. Those "in the know" - us - appreciate the
quality, and can work to get it onto the short list.
Strength: reasonable visibility within the Open Source community. I
discovered it because it had administration modules in webmin.
Weakness: the name and tag line. It doesn't matter when selling on the
merits, but it's a huge issue with getting on the short list.
Weakness: little known outside Open Source. That's a double-whammy since
many managers still tend to be skeptical of Open Source to begin with.
Weakness: no slick brochures, white papers, etc. When a manager asks his
employee "give me a short list of backup solutions", the employee will
start with google and download whitepapers and executive summaries. And,
no, the "What is Bacula" page does not count.
And let's also not forget: (most) managers aren't in the business of
promoting Open Source. They are in the business of solving their
business problems. Sometimes, Open Source is the answer, sometimes it isn't.
As a consultant, I advise many customers to buy Microsoft servers. I
personally prefer Linux servers, but for many situations, Windows really
is the better solution. I'm running a mix of both in my own office.
And I warn my customers of using OpenOffice.
But I point them to the Gimp for image manipulation.
I host their Web sites on LAMP.
etc. etc.
Ultimately, solving the problem matters - and licensing cost is only one
factor in the equation. Very often a minor one.
Ryan Novosielski wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Trouble is management these days in a lot of places doesn't know enough
> to make a decision other than on a cost or name basis. You'd expect if a
> person was unsure, they'd ask for a walkthrough or a synopsis, maybe
> with an extended trial period -- not just reject outright.
>
> Mag Gam wrote:
>
>> I have got a lot of convincing to do.
>>
>> :-(
>>
>> Will try my best.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 2:16 AM, Jon Ingason <jon.ingason AT sentor DOT se>
>> wrote:
>> Scott Lambert skrev:
>>
>>>>> On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 08:00:21PM -0500, Mag Gam wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I agree for the most part of what you said but when *we* (our team) is
>>>>>> competing with other teams in the firm to design and implement our
>>>>>> solution we also want management to take us seriously. Most of our MBA
>>>>>> management like names with acronyms..TSM **cough, cough**, versus
>>>>>> something a 10 year old would say to his sister, "baaaa-cula" . In
>>>>>> addition, choosing a produce named "Baucla" -- virtually unknown to
>>>>>> management -- against a known BUT expensive product could be a risky
>>>>>> move on their part, therefore I asked the initial question.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Make up an acronym using the letters B, A, U, C, L, and A again. Then
>>>>> spell it all in uppercase BACULA. It's a longer acronym than TSM so it
>>>>> must have more features and be a better product. :-)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>> What about
>>
>> B - Backing up data with
>> A - Advacned
>> C - Control
>> U - Utilities over
>> L - Lagre
>> A - Area or Areas
>>
>> ;-)
>>
--
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