Open Source Marketing
A salesman was speaking with his peers. He proposed that his employer should get rid of the company's marketing and technical staff. Isn't it strange that marketing and technical staff often feel the same way regarding business units that operate outside of the one in which they are employed?
When recently I saw the following in a blog, I was reminded of that salesman's lament:
It's almost a truism that open source software sells itself; the knock-on consequence is that you don't really need salespeople, which in turn means more money for developers and support.
Does this mean that Open Source Software (OSS) truly obsoletes the need for schools of business? If all businesses in the world were to fully embrace OSS would it truly make sense to dispose of all sales and marketing people? And would this mean that business owners and managers would really spend more on developers and support?
I want to see the evidence! I really do! Let's get developers and support staff (who know more than all the current schools of business do) to get together so we can start a not-for-profit education foundation to help business owners to make smarter and more informed decisions regarding how they should run their business.
Where is the evidence? We need it now!
"Does this mean that Open Source Software (OSS) truly obsoletes the need for schools of business? If all businesses in the world were to fully embrace OSS would it truly make sense to dispose of all sales and marketing people?"
I recall a meeting recently with a customer, the sales person patiently listened to the customer, interpreted their pain points, tried to position "our product" as part of the solution, positioned our teams overall strength for doing this,etc. The developer in attendence sat relatively quiet and when we left the developer's mentioned to me on the way out "that guy ( the customer) has NO CLUE how good our product is, how good we are and why open source is the way to go". He was right and it was a good thing the sales person was there :).