A good open source business plan.

[swestrup]

I've got a project in the works to web-publish a bunch of the various open-source-based business plans I've come up with over the years. This plan wasn't thought up by me, but definitely looks viable. Just another example of a way to make money from free software.

Comments

[swestrup]

More correct is to say that it could be. Tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems that Nitix is not aimed at the small business office, but at the small business server side of things.

From what I understand, Nitix is trying to be drop-in replacement for a windows server product. What this article suggests is:

1) Have a freely available linux distribution aimed at the small home office network. Choose a small set of hardware and guarantee reliability on that hardware.

2) Sell bundled packages of hardware and software and do simple physical maintenance and upgrade.

3) Charge a monthly fee to have the system remotely maintained, backed-up and upgraded on the fly.

It sounds to me like Nitix COULD target that market, but hasn't.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much the initial market we had and did well in (we slaughtered pretty much everyone else that was there at the time). Now we have to head up against Windows Small Business Server and it's ilk, because we're trying to grow and make even more money.

Actually, we charged a yearly fee for upgrades, but not for remote maintenance and backups. We made the machines not need the former and do the latter automatically. Upgrading is manual, but ridiculously easy. We also sell our products mainly through VARs that will pick up any slack for us, but they don't have to do much.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Plug-and-play Linux? That would be Nitix.

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

I'd better say that this looks like Expression (http://www.nit.ca/products/expression.php) more than Nitix (http://www.nitix.com/).