Unique Brand Appeal of Open Source

Curiously, Free and Open Source Software has a unique brand appeal that attracts quite a lot of users and believers, which debunks a few theories. Ramdas S explores this angle.

I have never been a great believer of brands, and as far as I remember, I have never ever purchased anything in my life based purely on brand value. This is true whether I buy a pair of jeans or shoes, whether I buy a PC or cell phone. At home and office, we do have several products and consumables that are branded; however these purchasing decisions have been made based on the value of every single paisa spent, rather than on brand appeal. To me, it defies logic when some of my friends pay a premium of more than 100%, just because a product has an American label or has a brand that is supposedly better than others. Please note that I am not against brands in anyway (I cannot be since I run a brand myself for a living).

Nor is this article on branding! In this article, I re-look the world of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) from the viewpoint of a typical technology customer; where he sees value and where he sees brand appeal. Well, ‘brand appeal’ in this case is a highly generalized term, and is not exclusive to the name of a product, process, company or person associated with FOSS. It is more about the spirit of the FOSS community and associated objects and abstracts.

I know it is a tough call to draw parallels between a wide-eyed teenager choosing between a Pizza Hut and the local Irani/South Indian restaurant, and a typical Enterprise choosing between Linux and Windows. However, I would like the readers to look at a few aspects of the technology buying decision, and compare it with general buying decisions.

Buying a Home Theatre

The closest to the technology marketplace in the consumer world, is the consumer electronics marketplace. Suppose I wanted to buy a home theatre; then I have fundamentally two choices. I can buy a branded system from a Sony, Samsung or a Philips. Or else I can get the entire home theatre assembled through contacts established in the local grey market. Let us look at pros and cons of both situations.

The first option of owning a brand is associated with a few feelings.

1. A sense of pride and joy at owning a popular brand at home.
2. The assurance that your product is good, and is most likely to survive without much of hassles for a longer time. It is a consoling fact.

Mind you, the above two are just feelings, and the second point is just a belief that is a result of the brand appeal. A brand theoretically does not guarantee quality; however it is a proven fact that, in most cases, great or good brands offer better quality. At the same time, you may also feel that you spent a bit too much on a product that could have been purchased at a much lesser price. This is one of the negative aspects of buying and owning a branded product. They will always be more expensive than an unbranded product. A possible reason for the consumer buying the brand is that he is not confident about his own abilities to handle the complexities of choosing and supporting the right speakers, amplifiers and acoustic electronics.

            Consider the second option of sourcing the components from an alternate channel and then assembling the product. You are left with a mixed set of feelings.

1. You are likely to have saved a neat little bundle of cash. And saving some money is sometimes as good as making a few bucks.
2. It is likely that you are a consumer electronics guru and that is why you went for such a deal. You may well be happy about the fact that you got something that is configured to your satisfaction and at the right price.
3. Finally, and most importantly, you also are left with a sense of pride, on the achievement of actually being able to put together something, which probably your neighbor could not have done.

These three positive feelings are often offset by a few ruing facts.

1. You are likely to miss out on the freebies and service, which a branded home theatre player throws in.
2. You have a fear about the guarantee and stability of the ensemble you have put together.
3. You also have a fear that potentially you may be spending more in the coming days, if something goes wrong, since there is no one to back you up with the guarantees.
4. There is also the image of being a grey market buyer.

            I guess a better analogy could have been a comparison with buying a PC, but I will stick with the home theatre example, since a larger section of society will understand consumer electronics better.

Buying an IT solution

Consider the example of a customer shopping for a technology solution. The buyer can opt for an open source technology or for a commercial product. I am not comparing Windows and Linux from an operating system perspective, as there are too many ambiguous reports favouring each platform. Let us instead look at a customer buying a set of products including a database server, an application server, and a set of applications for his business. There are two paths he can choose. The first one (which most companies opt for), is to first buy a database and application server (maybe Oracle or a product suite from Microsoft), and then see whether readymade applications are available for the platform, and if not, develop (outsource) applications.

            The Open Source model is not very different. Find whether there are Open Source products that fit into the picture. Choose the suite of products you require, customize them, and start developing (or outsourcing) on these platforms.

            A hybrid model, that is perhaps the smarter method to choose, is to use best of both worlds. We will leave such an option out of the picture for the moment, for argument’s sake.

It is likely that your service costs are higher using the second model, which may still be cheaper than cost of acquisition of licenses. However, in some cases, the service costs of customizing, configuring and then developing on Open Source platforms can be more expensive than buying commercial products.

Charm of Open Source

You can almost draw a parallel between a buyer of Commercial software and a typical consumer buying a branded home theatre. You can also draw a parallel between the geekish buyer of the assembled unit and an Open Source Technology buyer. However there are a few differences!

If both these buyers were CIOs of two companies, and they met somewhere, it is likely that the buyer of the commercial product will be in awe of the CIO who has braved the Open Source path. Open Source definitely enjoys great brand appeal! The brand appeal is derived from the fact that it is different from conventional wisdoms of the commercial software space.

            Buyers of Open Source Technology solutions are either confident of their own skills in handling a plethora of software that are less user-friendly and perhaps not as stable as the comparable commercial offerings, or are confident of a partner with such skills. They also are generally proud of the fact that they can handle Open Source. A buyer of commercial software believes that the real ROI for his company results from commercial solutions. The buyer may also lack self-confidence in his company’s abilities of solving problems through Open Source solutions.

            This theory may sound quirky to you, but some of my recent meetings with a company’s Systems Manager were an eye-opener to quirkier facts. The gentleman in question (whose identity I am not revealing) works for a leading Biotech company, which depends heavily on Information Technology for its research and development activities. The company has spent literally millions of dollars in acquiring cutting edge hardware and runs most of its servers and workstations on Linux. Surprisingly, all hardware purchased by the company comes from the big brands of the world, and the Systems Manager himself admits that they have paid a premium of thousands of dollars. He also admits secretly that the cost of running Open Source solutions is expensive in the short run. He has to employ several consultants to maintain systems and the company needs to cut fat cheques to these techies. Ultimately, they are not very different from another IT company, though their revenues come strictly from Biotechnology.

Why are they on Open Source?

His answer is simple. Open Source attracts great talent. The management recognizes that they require developers and researchers who can think out of the box. And they feel Open Source and Linux geeks will fit the bill. This, in the longer run, will generate better research work, and better results, which will help the company grow. “The fact that we use Open Source technologies attracts developers, from across the world, who are significantly better than the general junta, to work for us, or work with us” he says.

            His views are very similar to that of LISP guru Paul Graham (www.paulgraham.com), who opines that it is better to hire a Python developer (read an Open Source developer) than a Java programmer, since the chances are that the Python developer will be a better developer than the Java developer. Though I love Python myself, I will not judge a developer’s ability by his affinity for a language. That sounds insane to me!

However the fact that a section of the community sees a unique brand appeal in FOSS, something that represents a status that perhaps is not achievable though alternate technologies, is very valid. Though it sometimes defies logic!

(The above article reflects the author’s independent views. The magazine does not necessarily subscribe to the personal views of the staff, or the authors, writing for the magazine.)