The Industry choice

[Steve Holden]

Rob Emmons wrote:

>>For managers of companies it's worse: the company makes
>>VERY substantial investments into any technology it "marries",
>>and that means big losses if it goes. Long-term stability
>>of this technology in terms of "we're not going to be left out
>>in cold alone with this technology to feed it" means a lot 
>>to them. Even a poor technology with external backing 
>>of big, stable vendor is better than the excellent technology 
>>without ......
> 
> 
> There is the stability issue you mention... but also probably the fear
> issue.  If you choose a solution from a major company -- then it fails for
> some reason or they drop the product -- it's their fault -- you've got an
> automatic fall guy.  On the other hand, an open source solution or 
> otherwise less accepted solution ... it will probably be consider 
> your fault by the organization.  It's a rational decision to avoid 
> personal risk when you don't get much reward for choosing something 
> different.
> 
You are ignoring the fact that with the open source solution you do at 
least have the option of hiring bright programmers to support the 
framework which has now become moribund, whereas when a company goes 
bust there's no guarantee the software IP will ever be extricated from 
the resulting mess.

So I'm not sure I'd agree with "rational" there, though "comprehensible" 
might be harder to argue with.

Personally I'd feel in a better position standing before a Board of 
Directors and saying "While it's true that our chosen software platform 
isn't being supported by the original team any more, we do have options 
to continue to move it forward, including forming a consortium with 
other users".

Avoidance of blame is way too large a motivator in large organizations, 
and it leads to many forms of sub-optimal decision making.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden               http://www.holdenweb.com/
Python Web Programming  http://pydish.holdenweb.com/
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