Posted by Jeff on Monday, December 31, 2007 to DotNetNuke, Small Business
Much of the DNN community culture springs from the open source “free” nature of the platform itself. As an outsider stepping into the DNN world, I was amazed at the low module pricing threshold accepted within the community. Today, the majority of the highest rated and most popular products only sell in the range of $30-$100!
I once saw a customer complaining about lack of technical support for a $49.95 module. He was complaining in the module developer’s own support forum. This guy was really angry at having paid “all this money” for the module without getting immediate forum or email support responses!
I’m afraid this attitude pervades much of the DNN community. The reality of appropriate pricing levels, however, is based on the perceptions of both the selling and buying communities.
Take a look at Community Server (CS) from Telligent. CS is a polished community creation platform based on .NET. It features built-in, fully integrated blogs, forums, photo galleries, and more. CS Professional costs $2,000, but has some limitations that would drive more successful communities to CS Enterprise for around $20,000. Like DNN, a community of developers and consultants has grown up around CS. But, that’s where the similarity ends. Culturally, most contract CS developers won’t even talk to you about projects for under $20,000. Who the heck are these guys selling to, then?
They are selling to larger, corporate entities. But, how can CS possibly be successful when a similar DNN solution can be had for a fraction of the cost? (In fact, once the social networking features in Cambrian show up, I think DNN will be a far superior solution.) You might think that corporate customers are mostly focused on price when selecting enterprise products and services … and you’d be right ... to a point.
However, most companies also have a fundamental need for safety. Consider, for example, a company looking at solutions in the range of $20,000 - $40,000. More often than not, the business will go to a solution near the $20,000 end of that scale (all other factors being reasonably equal). Now, let’s say a $500 solution enters the fray. The big company usually won’t seriously consider this cheap player. It fears the company behind that solution is too small, won’t be around in the future to provide support, and probably has hidden technical deficiencies that all explain this outrageous pricing disparity. The old adage “nobody ever got fire for buying IBM” still holds true in corporate America, though there are a host of “safe” brands out there today.
So, I see three main problems with DNN’s culture of cheap.
- Module developers don’t generate enough revenue to grow beyond a single programmer working from his basement. Since the purchase price is low on the scale of ice-cream cone to car, the developer doesn’t always feel compelled to produce a bug free, full-featured, stylistic product.
- Module buyers aren’t spending much for these products (again on the scale of ice-cream cone to car) and therefore aren’t always compelled to push these modules to their functional and stylistic limits. “I only paid $30 for it. That’s not perfect, but good enough.” I believe this is another reason why many DNN websites look ugly. (See my previous post on this subject.)
- DNN consultants looking to win business with corporate clients may project their inherent “cheapness” thinking it will set them apart from more expensive, established options. I would suggest that you never tell such a client that Active Forums, for instance, only costs $200. If you lead with price and are competing with established firms that are all an order of magnitude higher than your quote, you will often be seen as the risky option.
I believe that DNN should be a seriously considered option for corporate websites. Does the community need to rise above its open source mentality to make real progress on that front?
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Posted by Tom on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 to Random Thoughts, Small Business
We host a large percentage of our client’s websites, so every so often I spend a good deal of time setting up email on various applications such as Outlook and Outlook Express. About a year ago a number of clients started to report problems when sending emails. Outgoing emails bounced back with error messages such as “we do not relay.” After investigating the matter it turned out that most major ISPs now require their customers to send via their outgoing SMTP server, meaning they don’t “relay” to our outgoing server anymore in order to minimize the spread of viruses and spam. Everything that helps fight spam!
In order to comply with this change of rules you need authenticate yourself to your ISPs outgoing email server by entering a username and password in your email client. Most ISPs have walkthroughs in the help sections of their websites that outline how to accomplish this for all popular email applications.
So last week I set up a new Vista machine for a client and encountered the “we do not relay” message again. OK, I thought, let’s call the ISP and get the SMTP address as well as the username and password for the account. So I did just that, but Outlook 2007 continued to reject the username/password. I kept checking my settings over and over again to no avail. The strange thing was that I could login fine at the ISPs website with the username and password that was given to me by the customer support agent. After 45 minutes of this frustration I called the ISP again only to find out that this account had been “dormant” for too long (because there was never a need for my client to login to anything) and needed to be “reactivated.” And after that was done, Outlook happily accepted the username and password and even sent email!
Here is one thing that I to this day still don’t understand. Why is it that some machines won’t send without authentication and others send just fine? My client has a second PC in his office that forgoes the ISPs outgoing mail server completely, but sends just fine. Anyone?
Sounds almost like a happy end, right? Well, not so fast. Another issue cropped up only minutes later. Most emails addressed to recipients overseas bounced back with an indication that the IP address of the ISPs mail server was identified as a spammer by whatever means. Now this is even more frustrating since it can be a lengthy process to get off these lists and even worse, two weeks later the IP could very well be back on the black list. And while the ISPs involved play the finger pointing game, my client is left with crippled email service.
Has email gone mad? Chime in.
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Posted by Tom on Monday, February 26, 2007 to Random Thoughts, Small Business
Have you ever been asked to work for free or very little money, but instead be compensated with high-ranking business contacts or more projects “down the road?”
While this may sound like a good investment at first, I’ve learned that it almost never bears fruit. Just think about it for a minute or two. You may find yourself in a situation were you fall behind on or even turn down paid work while working on a project for free. This makes no business sense at all, especially for most of us in the small business community. Unless you are sitting on a pile of cash, you simply can’t afford to be compensated by intangible promises.
Don’t get me wrong though, I do support non-profit or community efforts by working essentially for free, but those are a different story. I engage in these projects with the understanding that there will not be any “formal compensation” other than the feeling of pride and joy in the event of a successful effort.
Have you accepted compensation other than money from clients or business partners? If so, what has your experience been? Please share in the comments.
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