InfoWorld: Beating Proprietary on Open Source’s Terms

“Think about this in the context of software. If you’re a
startup, you can compete against the BigCos by doing what they do
better (and lose most of the time, because it’s just too much of a
pain to buy from a new vendor), or you can compete by doing what
the BigCos do differently. Or, rather,
selling/distributing/developing in some fundamentally different
way.

“Applebees could go out and fight head-to-head with Chilis,
etc., and it does. Applebees competes in the metropolitan markets
with all of the big chains. Even here, however, the company does it
differently, Fast Company reports: they concentrate restaurants in
these areas, rather than spreading them out, not fretting about
cutting into each other’s territory…”

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