Peter Donker wrote:
>> Competition in the marketplace is a good thing.
... On a level playing field, yes. If a 2000 pound gorilla uses its revenues at one end to erase competitors on the other, you end up killing the chick with the golden eggs, namely the CE ecosystem.
The CE ecosystem is dependant on two things: a) vendors who sell high quality and low cost modules and b) consumers who actually setup the CE and buy modules.
Consumers:
The lower the cost and the higher quality the modules, the better for consumers - no matter who is making them. This increases the number of CE deployments. When high quality modules/options are removed, this decreases the number of CE deployments.
Vendors:
For the vendors who get bumped out (or bought out!) - hey, its a jungle out there. This is nothing new. For vendors who stay competitive or provide products that the gorilla does not dominate (the vast majority) - things are better with increased number of CE deployments.
So I see everyone winning (hundreds of thousands) except the few vendors that get bumped out (a handful at most).
The fact of the matter is, DNN will only take out the top selling modules - so only a few vendors will be effected and get good $$$ buyouts. All of the other vendors are making $100 widgets. DNN is not going to touch them. But all the widget makers are going to suffer as CE dries up if all the truly enterprise backbone modules have been removed.
The problem is not erasing competitors (buy providing a better value). The problem is buying them up and confining their IP to the PE version.