Re: [Evangelism] Strategy focus decisions - Plone-the-product vs. Plone-the-platform – Discovering a blog entry by Paul Everitt from 2008

Matt Hamilton matth at netsight.co.uk
Tue Dec 1 07:12:01 UTC 2009


On 30 Nov 2009, at 09:18 PM, Dylan Jay <djay at pretaweb.com> wrote:

> These are awesome points. I think unique and challenging reality is  
> that plone is both product and a platform but we've been trying  
> market both through the same channels which is why the message has  
> sometimes been confusing. Eg we say plone is easy to install but in  
> reality only in drvrloment mode not production mode so that is  
> really a platfom message not a product message.
> Drupal delivers drupal the product message via it's dot com site and  
> it's platform message via it's dot org site.
>
> I am also thinking we are better off concentrating on selling plone  
> as a platform. Not just because we need more develepers and  
> integrators to gain greater momentum but recently I've been  
> discovering plone doest sell well as a product.
> If someone comes to us (as PretaWeb) and says
> A) we need a website that can blah blah then plone is easy to sell.
> If a customer comes to us and says
> B) we're considering to purchase plone as a cms or intranet it's a  
> really hard sell.
> This is even though we sell training and support and that both  
> solutions would need to be equally customized. Why?
> People picking products tend to pick product companies. Makes them  
> more comfortable. They feel like they can sue them and that will act  
> more to help them to protect the reputation of the product etc.  
> Plone has no product company.
> I guess this is why open source works better for platforms than  
> products.

I'm at a show so only a brief reply now, but just say that CMS Watch  
recently recategorised their vendor listings and now split by platform  
vs product and by size. IIRC Plone is in the Mid-range Platform  
category. Along with Drupal and Typo3. Alfresco is in Upper-range  
platform. Joomla and Terminal4 are in Simpler Products.

The CMS Watch stand is near us at the show I'll try and get some  
feedback on their views as to what went into categorising them.

-Matt 




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