[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: It's time for practical XML!
>Most of these solutions need to be commercial, >with support, documentation, upgrade plans, >bug-fix releases. Business will not use unsupported >freeware, and they _will_ pay for the tools they >need. I know pleanty of programmers who would love a job where they could work on these things. The problem seems to be in the business model. First, the internet is funny. Lots of folks willing to join a mailing list or download something that's free. But ask for a name and the numbers shrink. Ask for cash, and you will be luck to get any responses. And would you give me your credit card number? Really? One of the problems here is open standards. They are vital, but it means the small business may not have too much of a competitive edge when the big companies move in to take over a growing market. And a business plan must balance risks against potential profits. And without a business plan, there is no payroll for all those programmers who want to do this work. So we keep coming back to freeware. Now there are workable business plans. But they generally involve an element of consulting. Which is one way of avoiding the risks of an open market. But that doesn't give you the tools you want. One way out of this mess is the killer app. Another way is to broaden the market. And I think we could broaden the market by making it easy for all those Java programmers to write XML-based applications. But even that will take time. Of course, there's another complication. There is a segment of every open standards community that would rather see only freeware. Or perhaps they dislike proprietary products enough that any commercial- sounding endevor is discouraged. And yes, since a business must sell-or-die, there is a strong tendency to anti-social behavior. So things aren't all one sided. In any case, I think you are going to remain frustrated for a while, internet time that is. Though things seem to be moving even faster for XML than they did for Java. So there is hope. :-) Bill xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
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