Linux procurement in a recession

Without getting into too much consumer psychology it's a fact that our impulse to purchase 'desirable' products increases as our ability to buy them decreases.

This much is understood well by marketeers; as we lose something we want it more. To illustrate one aspect of this situation consider the following: as folk stopped gardening (look out of the train window if you don't believe me) the number of gardening shows on TV increased; as home cooking fell so the number of TV celebrity chefs shot through the roof; as our roads get ever more congested and restrictive Top Gear becomes more popular, you get the idea. More on TopGear later.

The phenomenon described above has an important consequence for those of us who wish to replace proprietary software solutions with Open Source software. The problem though is different in the business and Public Sectors.

Open Source software is extremely successful and relatively easy to sell into the business sector because IT procurement is funded from revenue and good companies have clear metrics for performance and cost because ultimately their success or failure is driven by the 'bottom-line'. ..one hopes, unless you have an MBA of course.

In the Public Sector however, especially education, IT procurement is driven by disposable income, much as it is for an individual domestic consumer and as such the domestic consumer psychology dominates.

Now I know, no income in the Public Sector is truly disposable in that there are competing priorities for spending and massive cash shortfalls...except for IT. Phrases like 'Government Initiative', 'Renewal Programmes' and the dreaded 'Ring-fenced' mean that a lot of IT procurement is from what is, in effect, windfall cash.

My first point is this: in a recession most people think like the consumers in the opening sentence. These people bring these feelings into their professional lives. Depending on the context there are different outcomes:

1) Businesses procure generally in line with their metrics, thereby mitigating their emotional responses

2) The Public Sector simply stops purchasing IT until the next windfall, thereby exacerbating their emotional consumer impulses.

Proprietary Marketing Strategies: thematic reasoning

Of course rich powerful proprietary IT companies have big budgets and slick, competent marketing teams (or ought to have). Their goal is to make their product desirable. The iPhone is currently the apotheosis of this enterprise and I would contend it has become more desirable as disposable income shrinks.

Thus I can predict with confidence that, say if in the schools sector had the money not dried up and the school renewal programme was still lavishly funded, then the ICT guys would go out and order all the latest hardware with 21" flat screens, blue-ray DVD, 3D acceleration, Windows 8 ultimate (or whatever) Adobe Loadsamoney..and be very pleased with themselves.

This kind of thinking fits in with a recent telephone conversation with an impecunious FE College regarding their future purchase of collaboration software. A clip of which follows: "We will definitely be buying a proprietary solution when the Government renewal money comes through..but until then we are deferring all procurement"..nuff said.

Probing the above respondent who was, shall we say, not an engineer the following emerged. To her Proprietary = expensive = good = desirable: Open Source = cheap = bad = undesirable.

This is an example of classic Thematic Reasoning which is the dominant thought-form out there in the wild. Indeed fair-play to the proprietarist marketing boys and girls, good job, but it is a theme we in the Open Source World must avoid like the plague.

In fact we must ensure that the opposite 'theming' is achieved. Below is a not altogether tongue in cheek guide to doing just that.

The Jeremy Clarkson model 'best of breed'.

Mr Clarkson writes every week for The Times' InGear section. He understands what we lust after, what we buy, and what we shun regarding motor cars. Our job as Open Source Apologists would be (for Jeremey) to achieve the cost base of the Kia Magentis and the desirability of an Audi A6 (£18k versus £31k) which are after all similar sized saloon cars that do much the same job. Jeremy is now so influential in his own right if he recommended the Kia I would probably consider it. We need JC to help us with software marketing.

The reason Audi can get away with this price (ie be that desirable) is not just good marketing. Even the mosts surly and utilitarian engineer will acknowledge that from an electro-mechanical view point the Audi simply bristles with 'best of breed' technology. All the marketing team have to do is make sure we appreciate this.

This, I think, gives the clue to the way forward for Open Source software. Best of breed as a concept is 'desirable' so if we wish to reach the 'consumer' mentality then we must make others know this. FOSS must be Audis to (say) Microsoft's Kias in terms of desirability but unlike the former a lot less expensive. That's some circle to square.

How it's done, the Clarkson way.

Below I have unpacked well known exemplars of software, FOSS and proprietary and assigned a car to them. I challenge you to get the images out of your mind so if you are of an impressionable disposition look away now.

It's obviously not a complete list and no aspersions are being cast on the software or the cars. any associations are all in your head. Thanks to JC for his reviews which provided the inspiration for the list.

Two points to make from this table.

Firstly the * products are really bundles of 'integrated components' usually the bundle disguises the quality of the individual parts. An analogy would be the integrated Hi-Fi music centre from Argos (nothing wrong with Argos) versus a Sony 'separates' system. The former has all the features of the latter (often more) but...

Second point, there is a marketing and sales point; which of the above 'cars' would be shifting off the forecourt, especially if your products were more expensive than your rivals?

To finish this exercise in nematic nonsense, the message must be to carry a message to all potential FOSS clients.

That message is: We have a lot of 'top of the range' and 'best of breed' products in our portfolio and we are up against some old bangers as well as classymotors.

We need to tell everyone.

Open Source = classy = cool = high performance = good value