%0 Journal Article %J Open Source Business Resource %D 2009 %T The Benefits to ISVs of Working with Large Enterprise Consumers on Open-Source Projects %A Kingston Duffie %X Selling software to consumers is tough as they want perfection and expect to pay nothing. Consumers are fickle and the competition can be fierce. By comparison, large enterprises have big problems and buckets of money to spend on solutions, allowing you to focus your marketing on a small target. While large enterprises sound like ideal customers, the small independent software vendor selling to a large enterprise faces long sales cycles, extreme quality expectations, challenges integrating into a complex jungle of pre-existing systems, and the need to partner with others to create a complete solution. At Fanfare, we believe that there are a variety of successful software business models that employ open source strategies. One such strategy is to sell closed source solutions constructed on top of an open source platform. In fact, the Eclipse Foundation considers enabling this kind of business model as one of its mandates. We sell a complete system test automation solution that is built on top of Eclipse and sold to customers as a "turnkey" solution using Eclipse's Rich Client Platform technology. In this article, we examine six benefits of this approach. Some of these benefits apply to any ISV, but many are specific advantages for ISVs selling into large enterprises. %B Open Source Business Resource %I Talent First Network %C Ottawa %8 01/2009 %G eng %U http://timreview.ca/article/220 %N January 2009 %9 Articles %1 Fanfare Group Kingston Duffie is the founder and CTO of The Fanfare Group, the market leader is system test automation tools. Previously, Kingston founded two other successful data communication equipment companies, Whitetree Networks and Turnstone Systems. Kingston holds a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and a master's of science degree in electrical engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.