All-

During the recent Revelation Software User's Conference in Seattle, we were approached by a number of developers who seemed to have a common problem. They had excellent products, happy customers, and great support. However, they were small 1 or 2 person shops. When they made a pitch at a new prospect, they would be asked the inevitable ‘How big is your organization?’ question, which is often followed by the ‘What happens if you get hit by a car’ question. They would often lose the sale, even thought they had the better solution.

These attendees at the conference suggested the idea of forming a sort of developer’s alliance, where different organizations would assist each other in areas of technical support. For example, if Consultant A went on vacation, she would know that developer B would handle technical support for her clients. Consultant B may have a product that requires 24 hour support, so they would work it out with developers C and D, located in Australia and the UK respectively, so that all 24 hours in the day were covered.

Now, there’d have to be some guidelines: source code available at the site, login and connection information made available, copyright enforcement, an agreement not to entice or steal another developer’s clients away, but they can be worked out. We’re sure there are other things we haven’t thought of yet, but we thought we’d put forth this proposition to the developer community and see if it should be pursued.

We’d like your comments. Please either post them in this thread, or send your comments to info@revelation.com

Thanks

Revelation Software

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