Beanies with small propellers
Steve Borsch, whose blog Connecting the Dots is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of collaboration and technology, writes about the problems he encountered recently when attempting to use an Open Source tool to conduct a survey. Steve is a very smart guy, far more adept than me at twisting the wires together (or connecting the dots for that matter) and yet he ended up going with a commercial, hosted solution after hitting a brick wall with the OSS tool. What really resonated with me is his assessment of the current state of affairs for those of us who have some skills but are definitely not technical (or patient) enough to invest excessive time in making OSS tools work when a viable and affordable commercial alternative exists:
Well stated. This resonates with me and describes my experiences to a T. In the finaly analysis, it's often a better business decision to pay up front in dollars rather than later in the project in lost time and opportunity.