Open Source and Non-Profit
I met with a very interesting potential client yesterday. It's a non-profit group that places people into jobs and then tracks their history. Small office, all Microsoft Access DBs. They need to get "online" and wanted to talk about options. Here's who was in the meeting:
- Their internal IT guy who only knows Microsoft stuff. A very nice guy, very smart.
- A retired 28 year Gillette executive, on loan to them from an Executive Help service, who got involved to help build a 3 year IT plan. He was a big systems person but really, really sharp. He brought a real systems perspective to the meeting.
I proposed a pretty standard Open Source technology approach:
- DB: MySQL or PostGres
- Application Language: PHP
- Webserver: Apache (what else?)
- Hosting: Standard cheap hosting, something between $25 and $100 per month
Here is what was absolutely amazing to me. They bit! They're wicked interested and there is no Microsoft at all in the solution. They had no experience with Open Source at all but they understood the benefits and I'm looking at a 5 to 6 figure contract. Haven't gotten the work yet but this is amazing.
Anyway, it strikes me that the real benefit for non-profits of Open Source is that they can:
- Spend their $ on what matters to them: The Application
- They can spend more $ on the people they are trying to help
That's pretty cool. Sure, I'm a consultant so I'm biased but it's still cool.
9:55:21 AM 
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