Future of Collabtive

[gooch]

Other addons you could monetize are things like iphone/smartphone apps, Quickbook integration, gantt charts apps (sorry if you already have these, I'm fairly new). Good luck!

[darkchild]

Phillip, thnaks a lot for the great work you are doing.

I am hoping you can answer this for me. Several people have offered with the development/coding of collabtive. If my memory serves me right, I have not seen any responses from you. Are you open to having otherdevelopers join you or youare not. Since this thread discusses the future of the project, I think this is certainly an important indicator of how the project will go from here.

I, and I am sure others who think this project is awesome, would very much appreciate an answer.

[mloeffen]

Phillip, thnaks a lot for the great work you are doing.

I am hoping you can answer this for me. Several people have offered with the development/coding of collabtive. If my memory serves me right, I have not seen any responses from you. Are you open to having otherdevelopers join you or youare not. Since this thread discusses the future of the project, I think this is certainly an important indicator of how the project will go from here.

I, and I am sure others who think this project is awesome, would very much appreciate an answer.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=637&p=3024#p3024

[qwertme]

Don't do it as hosting(sounds cheap!), do it as a paid service like Basecamp but at better value. Offer a plan that does not cost 24$ a month! They charge too much for small startups and one person operations. Think 5$ - 10$ per Month to manage 2 - 5 projects. As a startup that is what I need and I would have paid that amount (Instead, I downloaded the software and spent time I should have been using to earn money configuring it)

Offer a yearly plan: 50$ - 100$ per year, that is a good investment, sounds better than a monthly thing maybe. Offer a "Pay as you go" plan, 5$ per project per month(or 5$ for the first project, 3$ for the second and so on): Hey, If I have more projects maybe I am making more money and I don't mind putting 5$ on the management software, but when I start and when I only have one project I am good.

If you market it right, your software could be a goldmine even if you offer the code as open source. Few people have the skill or time or desire to manage their own software.

Good luck!

[omstudios]

Dear developers, dear community members,

sorry for popping into this discussion so late!

Regarding any thought of gaining commercial revenue out of collabtive, i hope the last word has not been spoken yet.

Since i came to like the open source idea more and more i think there always should be a free available and up-to-date self-hosting release of collabtive if you want to pushing it any further, if not keeping it alive. On the other hand i understand the 'monetary' demands of contributing developers very well. At a first glance I see this as a sort of dilemma, where something has to be combined which does not fit together at all.

I actualy see many possibilities, very few but at least some of them can combine both the commercial and the "free" world at the same time:

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1) open core, optional commercial add ons - the evolutionary approach
I pretty much like the idea of having a free and up to date open source version with basic functions. As soon as it comes to individual add ons it's time for some money making. I think of small to medium companies with individual demands for organizing their workflow. Also, if i use collabtive for commercial purpose i should be ready to invest some money in its development.

There should be clarity about the question whether these sponsered add ons should be available to the community. I think generally yes because if you want things to keep alive, you have to constantly change it. It is very likely that new and freely available features could inspire others to extend them or even develop additional improvements.

There even could be some sort of top 10 with most demanded features and a time/cost estimation accordingly. People could then join together and rise funds for them. Also, if there is a new sponsored module, the community can decide if it is worth for an extension of the open source core or not.

Actualy i see recent efforts for developing a plugin system as a perfect basis for such a combined strategy: The core software is Open source, add ons / mods / extensions / skins can be commercial. Pretty much like extensions for Thunderbird.

With this i regard some sort of unique speciality or strength in terms of a certain feature, usage system or whatever as a crucial criterion for the success and sustainability of collabtive. Lets call it a vision, where all development of collative shall lead to. I suggest keywords like "simplicity", "flexibility", "usability", "collaborative", "interactive", "workflow-oriented", "democratic" for defining such a vision.

I'm very aware that there are lots of different workflows and methods of 'getting things done', not to mention the permanently changing traditions of how people organize themselves in a team. All that should constantly inspire the development of any tool which claims to be useful in these things.

Any sort of commercial service for addons must be very visible to possible sponsors. If you precisely know the workflow of highly specalized companys, you can provide ideas for helpful and supportive tools. I think that especially companys with a focus on media production like film/TV/postproduction houses or advertising agencies are a valuable target group, since they work highly collaborative and team based. Well, actualy i am talking about myself here...

2) commercial and open source version - a collaborative approach
To keep it short: A commercial stable version with included support, documentation, installation, hosting etc and modular pricing on the one hand, a free open source version as playground for new ideas on the other. Each of them provide advantages for different purposes and users, each of them helps the counter part to evolve and survive. Companys are asked to use the commercial version. Students, indviduals, public institutions and very little enterprises are welcome to use the open source version. Similar strategies can be found with many other open source projects.

3) commercial open source - the capitalistic approach
Everybody who is contributing to the project becomes a valuable part of it. Why should not she/he participate in possible revenues? Basicaly i am talking about a real commercial open source project: The actual software is commercial, maybe in combination with a free version for students, public institutions and so on. Everybody can take part in the project an become a contributing member. The software is completely free in this case.

People who register themselves as contributors are regarded as share holder and get revenue of the commercial distribution according to their actual contribution.

The project is lead by all members like in a regular open source project, but all revenues are collected in a friendly society. The work of the community members will be paid by this money, the rest -if there is any- can be invested in PR or other open source projects.

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Thats it for the moment, i hope some of you find anything usefull in here.

best regards

Jeremias

[RobertsWeb]

Hi! What a great time for me to find such a nice piece of software!

I have spent the past 3 years as a volunteer for the SOBI2 Directory component for the Joomla CMS software http://sigsiu.net . My role on the development team is support on the forums and quality&testing. I'm glad to give back to a component I use for free over and over again. The main component itself is licensed as GPL and is free to download and use. However, there are several plugins and modules that are commercial apps which must be purchased.

The sobi2 software has grown to be very popular in the joomla community, and is produced by a single developer and his wife, with some outside developers creating free and paid plugins as well. This seems to work fairly well, except for the fact that when you get big, you still have to support it. If you spend all your time helping the paying customers, you would hope that you have a good community supporting the free software as well. There's no time for you, as a developer to do everything. Develop core, plugins, support and paid services... you will quickly wear yourself thin.

I think the idea of having a free base component (or core software in this case) with paid add-ons allows you to develop and resale the products over and over again without the need for constant customization on your part to make a living.

Let's face it, if we could take our knowledge and time as coders and designers and put it in a bottle and sell it over and over again, we would probably make a fair living, but to sell ourselves to customers on an hourly basis, speaking for myself, I don't make near enough money.

That's just my 2 cents... sorry I'm late to the party!

[avychodil]

A lot of work have been done on Collabtive, but be honest - there are still a lot of problems. I think that in this state is still time to thing about paid version, although it will be the best variant. In this situation will be good thing about other options - sponsor, donation or paid customization (there is a big place where you can get money). A lot of people will be happy when you be able to implement functionality that they want. Moreover, usually it would be functionality, that could be a part of next Collabtive version.

[vusis]

yes, perhaps you can run it like wordpress. make the entire app free
1. give a hosted version
2. build premium plugins - i can already think of many, such as integration to freshbooks and so on.

[hosseinlotfian]

For me the answer is very simple. It is all bout how many users you have. You say it is downloaded 50000 times. That being the case you have 50000 potential users. Your competitors charge 24$ a month for a hosted service but personally i would not just jump on that immediately specially because of the open source philosophy. Its all about what things cost and how good a system is. Here i suggest some ways that perhaps you can build a business model like this.

no body pays donations but if you pledge every user who downloads (after trying out the demo version) 1 $ per month charged 12 months at the time. if you have 10000 dedicated users, you get 120000$ per year. Every one would honour such a low payment including myself

Keep the core for 12 dollars a year and Build special modules (just like people who buy modules for dot net nuke) and charge a small amount for that module lets say 12$ a year

Charge for services like installation and basic set up for those who like the system but don't know how to install. Charge a small one time payment for these services

I myself have a small company with a very specialized software for travel management of travel agencies. Its all about how many users one has. the more the users, the cheaper the product and the better the further development possibilities. You have got a great system. I don't see why we should not all contribute a small amount so that in turn it can cover resources for developers.

Hope the best for you guys. You have really done a nice system and you deserve it.

best regards
Hossein

[dynamite]

I'm a newcomer here but I'd like to weigh in...

The open-source WordPress community has become very profitable for the core team as well as independent designers and developers that have been able to build their own businesses on top of this freely available software - despite the fact that the core software and all associated updates are freely available to all. I believe Collabtive can take several lessons from the model used here and carve a path to a successful and profitable future.

1. Auttomatic makes the WordPress software and its upgrades freely downloadable & extensible for both personal and commercial use, but also offers a hosted solution with freemium features for those who don't care to or know how to install and manage the software

2. Auttomatic also offers paid developer support (assistance and advice) for large-scale self-hosted deployments i.e. enterprise/commercial users who use the software in mission-critical situations or special hosting for enterprise/commercial users who may not want or have the expertise to deal with the server-side requirements of such a deployment. Think Magento Enterprise Edition, instead in this case, Collabtive can work with small-to-midsized companies who manage teams of developers and designers along with clients, and either can't afford for their system to not work optimally or need advanced/special features.

3. Finally, Auttomatic has enabled and supported a community that has developed a profitable paid (premium) themes and plugins microeconomy and these developers haven't lost sleep over people pirating their work. I can see someone developing invoice and estimate plugins for smaller businesses that want to manage this in one place with their projects as well as themes and plugins that might appeal to other demographics that use the software.

These are three things I've seen done well, not just with WordPress - and I believe that Collabtive, as it rounds out its core features to provide a complete system, can use these models to experience profitability.

Best wishes