Blog entries tagged BusinessModels

"Free as in not being ripped-off"

Paul Walsh — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:45:23 +0100

Theme of the week for me has been "free software".

It started from a strange source - reading about the judgement in the BSkyB versus EDS law case. Briefly, BSkyB hired EDS in 2000 to build a customer relationship management (CRM) system for two call centres in Scotland. The project was worth £48m, and EDS gave assurances that the system could go live within nine months and be completed within 18 months. However, by 2002 BSkyB had taken the development back in-house (it then spen...

The business of software - is selling commercial open source really that different?

Paul Walsh — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:41:51 +0100

It's been one of those months where two or three thoughts or threads connect together.

First, we've been exploring tighter integration between CogniDox and Microsoft Windows Office applications. This led us to sign up for the BizSpark technology seeding program (many thanks to BLN for sponsoring our application) and to work with Microsoft technologies; if not for the first time then at least more than usual for us. Completely unconnected, of course, but in the same period Microsoft...

Adopting a line of Miro source code

Paul Walsh — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:00:00 +0100

Miro, an open source video aggregation site using VLC media player, has a novel idea for generating funds. They want each of us supporters to adopt a line of code for $4 per month.

Obviously it will take a while to get adopters for all 46,258 lines of code, but I assume that their "pricing model" has been explicitly calculated and if so it gives an interesting insight into the costs of the business. They would be able to generate a little over $2.2M (£1.5M) per year.

Mir...