If you're anything like me you're not currently at OpenForce '08 Europe and having a great old time.  And you're probably watching the news, or reading blogs, or a stock ticker, and thinking 'something big is up with this financial crisis'.  I've read some rosy stories that say 'the turnaround is just around the corner', and other doom and gloom predictions which have made me want to buy up all the canned food I can find and flee for the hills with a shotgun and deep sense of mistrust towards fellow humans.  The truth, as always, will be found somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps you're wondering how your life is going to be affected, and perhaps you're even wondering what this means for the platform/project/ecosystem that is DotNetNuke.

I'd just like to add my thoughts on this : I think it's a great opportunity for the DotNetNuke project and people who earn a living selling related products and services.

It's a fair bet that nobody involved in DotNetNuke lived through the great depression.  It's an each-way bet that many people who work with DNN don't even remember the last recession that went around in the early 1990s.  I remember that one quite well, because that's when I graduated university with shiny degree in IT and found that nobody was really hiring.  I ended up driving a forklift for a while, which leaves me with the strangest mix of skillsets you're likely to find : a software developer with a forklift licence.  But back then there weren't any open source projects I could get involved in. 

When tough times hit companies, they stop hiring staff and stop buying new things.  Purchasing limits are lower, projects are given tighter budgets.  IT projects have to show that they provide extra value before they get approved.  Small companies have to concentrate all their resources on maintaining their income.

The net result is that large, expensive purchases of systems is probably going to get put on hold for the foreseeable future.  And that's where DotNetNuke comes in - The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a DNN site is many magnitudes lower than for 'enterprise solutions' that DNN sometimes competes with.  If you've got a new project, using the DNN Core as a base to complete it is more efficient and saves time and money.  None of the DNN vendors charge ridiculous amounts for the products : even the most expensive modules probably fly under the radar of purchasing limits.  There are no 'suits' selling DNN in expensive sales meetings - and that's a strength at times like this.  DNN isn't going to flameout like so many companies in 2000.

If anything, IT investment should go up during times of crisis, because it's the efficiency gains that a good IT project can deliver that can really make a difference during lean times - whether that is in bringing in revenue through more customers, or by cutting costs.

The other factor for a community, volunteer driven project like DNN is that there's probably going to be more skilled people with time on their hands - which is what happens when your current project gets cancelled.  If that describes you, the reader, then why not get involved with one of the DNN modules.  There's always work to be done, and keeping yourself busy while not employed keeps the skills up (or helps gain new ones), fills gaps in the resume and tells a good story at interview time.  You don't even need to be on the 'official' project - you can start a DNN Forge module, or fix some bugs in the DNN Core and offer up your solutions. 

In summary, I think the DNN community should try to look past the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt surrounding the global economy and think of ways in which DNN can make the most of the situation through its community base, and low-cost nature.  People will still be getting up each morning and going to work.  Millions of people will interact with websites during their workdays and weekends.  The demand will still be there, and will hold steady as people shop online more, research decisions more and even stay home and surf the net for entertainment more.  And DNN is there to do all of that.  So don't lose faith, and perhaps try suggesting DNN for a solution instead of that $30,000 consultingware at your next corporate meeting.

-Bruce

I tell my customers this:

a) If I go bust or die tomorrow there are plenty of DNN developers and consultants out there more than willing to take my place.

b) The customer has their own source code. I'm not kidnapping it and holding it to ransom (although they may be under contractual obligations just to ensure we get paid for our work and can earn a living wage). How protective is your supplier with source code?

c) What will happen if your current website supplier disappears of the face of the earth? What happens if they find bigger fish to fry and your company becomes a burden to them rather than an asset? So who is in control here after the project is completed?

d) We get websites up FAST, once the first site is up other sites can be developed at lightning speed (depending on requirements of course). Hosting costs are hugely reduced with a centralised portal model.

e) If you use MS technologies (for local databases etc) then the ease and expense of integrating the website should be greatly reduced. Heck have you ever thought about changing over your internal databases to work inside DNN?

I don't think there are any grey areas here with the above statements? The only time where there is a grey area is when a customer has been fed with disinformation or has heavy preconceptions about Open Source.... which in this day and age I would suggest is rather silly. Hypocritically I notice that often these sorts of customer profiles end up with badly-scalable J2E or PHP solutions run on Linux, and end up paying mucho more $$$ to the guy in the smiley suit.

For what it's worth, I work at a municipal government that has been hit by financial issues, not due to the current "crisis" but just general economic downturns.  In the last budget year I had a project to replace our home-grown Classic ASP site with a content management system.  And I had the budget to do it with commercial software.  After about four months of testing and research, I released almost all of the money and moved (or am moving, the approval process in government can be very slow...) our site(s) to DNN.  A couple hundred bucks in third party modules and some customizing work and we can save $10,000.  It's a bit more work, we have to do our own user training, but it's cost effective.

I have no problem spending money for an appropriate value, especially when I already had the money budgeted.  But I can't justify spending money where the added value isn't present.  If I leave here, as the only DNN and ASP.NET capable person, we will probably need to pay for outside support.  But that support is something we would pay for in a commercial system anyway, a couple grand a year would be normal.  Still a better value than any other solution I looked at.  And yes, I looked at PHP solutions as well.

DNN is not for everyone.  If I didn't work here, I wouldn't recommend DNN, the other staff would not be able to configure or support it.  Hopefully the next bad year's layoffs will spare my job...  :)

Jeff