CRMDaily.com: Latest Open-Source Revolution: Tech Support

“Historically, proprietary-software companies have maintained
much more highly developed customer-support infrastructures than
open-source software firms. Providing a user purchased the right
contract, tech help would be just a phone call away.

“The best that open-source software could offer, on the other
hand, was uncertainty. If a large enterprise were to migrate to
Linux in 1998, for example, could it rely upon one of the small
open-source vendors to keep it up and running?

“But that situation has radically changed. As open-source
software and the companies that sell it have matured, vendor
support has come a long way. The operative question for the
software industry now is this: Has the open-source community
leveled the tech-support playing field…?”

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