[ Thanks to steve
hill for this link. ]
“Beware price comparisons
“With the current economic climate there has been a fair bit of
rhetoric regarding the opportunities for free software to gain some
“market-share”. I think any argument which primarily advocates a
cost advantage to free software is flawed. I’ve gone on enough in
this column regarding free software and market share but in short
proprietary software sales is measured in ways that free software
installations cannot. It’s also been said by a few people — some
of them on here — that advocating free software on price alone is
a dangerous business; although the temptation to do so increases
during an economic downturn, the danger does not diminish. Why?
Well, if you set out your stall built on the lowest price, somebody
will almost always come along and beat it. They’ll use (often
deliberately) confusing terms like “Total Cost of Ownership” and
“lifetime costing”. The point is that if a punter switched sides
once because of price, chances are they’ll do it again. If you are
going to use an argument to win, make sure it’s harder to beat
later.”