Is Branding the Future of Open Source?

Khalid writes "People are still looking for good open source business models. Here is a very interesting one I found in the JBoss site. You can become a certified JBoss Group Authorized Consultant in exchange of $5000. Which comprise training and tests, in return, you can use the JBoss brand, which is quite recognized now. While this may not apply to all open source projects, I think this is a best of both worlds deal. The source is open for everybody (JBoss is LGPL). JBoss get a very solid network of consultants which make the JBoss brand even more solid (human networks never die). Users can get support and service and the people at JBoss Group can get some money to pay the bill and keep improving JBoss to make it an even better product, a very virtuous cycle." $5000 is a lot of money, though, and that cost is per-year, not a lifetime membership.

Marketing fee, so why don't they call it that?

[ewanrg]

OK, I can understand using certification as a business model and to help develop a stable of knowledgable consultants for projects. But having a per year fee on top of the certification seems like you're paying for them to help market you. So why not call it what it is?

Personally I think having to pay on top of the certification starts to be a bit much. If I pay the 5K and don't get any work out of it, what have they really done for me?

So you're a rocket scientist??

[Beetjebrak]

That don't impress me much, as one of my favorite non-teen female singers tends to say. I can fork over $5000,- and follow a bit of training. However does that make me a good consultant for JBoss or anything else? I don't think so. Quality as a consultant in this field depends on more than just certificates and you simply can not do your job well based on just a JBoss certificate. You must know the implications of the underlying OS, hardware, network system etc. before you can make any sort of informed decision at all about anything to do with IT, including JBoss. Certification/branding, which are synonyms in my book, can only work properly if the training procedure is audited and the trainees get proper examinations where it is possible to fail. I've seen all too many courses where you just go there, sit in a classroom at a screen for two days, fill in a bogus test and receive your certificate no matter how horribly you did on your test.. You paid for it, so you're getting your cert. Practices like these make me very wary of 'branded' developers or consultants. Luckily I'm not in any position to hire personnel, I'd hate that.. but I know I would put them through a pretty strenuous pre setup hands-on test instead of an interview.

How much is $5000

[NerdSlayer]

$5k is a lot of money for a single person, but it's fairly reasonable for just about any company. Don't forget, some companies pay $80k for a single Oracle license. The requisite Oracle DBA is about 80k a year extra on top of that.

Re:Marketing fee, so why don't they call it that?

[Christopher Thomas]

I can understand using certification as a business model and to help develop a stable of knowledgable consultants for projects. But having a per year fee on top of the certification seems like you're paying for them to help market you.

That depends. You could make a good argument for mandatory recertification to make sure people haven't just forgotten everything they crammed for the exam, and to keep them up to date with improvements. Making certification expire yearly accomplishes this.

Personally I think having to pay on top of the certification starts to be a bit much. If I pay the 5K and don't get any work out of it, what have they really done for me?

They've given you permission to use their label when looking for work, which presumably greatly increases your chances of finding it. If you still can't find any, that doesn't invalidate what they gave you.

I'm not arguing that JBoss certification is *worth* $5K - that's a value decision each buyer has to make for themselves. I'm just pointing out that there is a justification for what they're doing, even if you disagree with the price point.

This is gonna cost be karma, but...

[ComaVN]

This might mean open source projects shouldn't be given ripoff names like Mozilla, ScummVM, Gaim, Licq, etc. Rebuilding functionality of closed source applications is fine, but you might just be a bit more creative and give it a REAL name.

Works for Coke, Red Hat

[MAXOMENOS]

How do you convince people to buy carbonated sugar water, manufactured at 1.5 cents a can, for sixty cents? Marketing! By the same token, Red Hat has become synonimous with Linux in the non-Linux world. People are willing to pay $80 for software that they can download for the cost of bandwidth, or get from CheapBytes for ten bucks. IT professionals are willing to pay big bucks for Red Hat certifications.

Rock on...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Branding is SO the way to go for open source. Half the reason the powers that be let me run RedHat is because I can get support for it. (Or rather, they can get support for it if I ever leave, get laid off, or get creamed by a bus.)

I can use MySQL because its getting to be a recognized name, and because I can always fall back to the sleepycat license for projects that require the dark side of the force.

Most of your turf wars (Debian v RedHat v Suse, MySQL v PostGres, etc) are all about branding. There are very few functional differences that any corporate user would notice.

My US0.02

Branding is The Future for All Products

[ites]

The key is turning technology into products.
A product is kept alive by its users.
How much effort did JBoss invest before getting here?
It takes time and money to create a product.
And often, luck.
But when it works, branding turns it from technology into a box.
And people will buy boxes. They love boxes.
See my Nikes!
JBoss is a great example. Kudos, kudos!

$5k is cheap

[photon317]

Even if your "company" is just one individual who knows a lot about JBoss, $5k/year is cheap. If your full-time job is being a JBoss developer/consultant, you will be charging clients per hour out the wazoo like all consultants, and raking in enough to make this amount trivial.

I think these JBoss guys have really hit the nail on the head when it comes to making an open source business model work financially. Personally, I dislike java as anything but a client-side language for a thin GUI, so JBoss is not my cup of tea - but the model is impressive and I'm proud of them.

Re:Marketing fee, so why don't they call it that?

[kin_korn_karn]

and not only that, but the consultants this is obviously aimed at are often Corporations of One that can write that $5000 off on their taxes as a bad investment, if it gets them no work. If it does get them work, it probably pays for itself considering what those guys charge.

/.'ers Do Your Math!

[md17]

I have been reading all sorts of comments from people complaining about the $5000 / year.

J2EE consultants can charge about $150 - $400 / hour. If you could get 5% more per hour by having your JBoss certification, then the 5k is not much.

Let's do some math:

(Normal J2EE Consultant)
20 hours / week
x $200 / hour
x 50 weeks
-------------
$200,000 / year (Wouldn't that be nice)

(JBoss Certifified Consultant)
20 hours / week
x $210 / hour
x 50 weeks
--------------
$210,000 / year (That would be even nicer)

So there... You just made (net) an extra $5000 for getting your JBoss certification. Realistically, I think that JBoss certified consultants could get more than an extra 5% but I was trying to be conservative.

So have fun, and if you want to make more money then go get your JBoss certification. Simple as that.