Yes, you can make money selling OpenStack
Posted by: David Fishman
Want to make money with OpenStack? Congratulations and welcome to the club.
“How do you sell products and services in the market niche that OpenStack occupies?” - we are asked this question very often. Therefore, in this article I recorded some facts - to help you get started, and it is also possible to give a good marketing move if you are already working.
')
Obviously, there are many ways to enter this market, although there are general principles that we have derived from our experience of involving more than 50 customers in various industries. The tide helps the boats to get off the shoals, and the boats, in turn, deliver flour, from which you can bake a “tasty cake”, etc. with little effort. etc ... so we decided to share our knowledge in this article.
First, you need to understand who can become your client, both today and tomorrow. The OpenStack platform is only 3 years old, but as far as the project’s view is concerned, the user base — and with it your customer base — is expanding and changing significantly.
At the very beginning, infrastructure providers were those who were willing to spend the most on integrating their hardware and software with the OpenStack platform. Now the most likely participants are service providers and internet application providers who want to differ from others by using OpenStack, and they are usually willing to risk more than anyone else. Who is next? Taking into account how quickly the market is changing, your customer base can drastically change after 2-3 years - and the acquisition patterns of your clients can also change a lot.
OpenStack performs well, but not everywhere. To get started with something, make sure that when you sell products and services that complement OpenStack, you have a reasonable understanding of the following three properties of your customers:
-Do your potential customers know about the cloud? If their business is based on distributed applications that have scalability and fault tolerance built in - this is what you need.
-What is the size of your customer's cloud? Size * matters * the bigger the better. OpenStack does not justify itself for a business that does not plan to expand the cloud to more than 4 servers in it. Just like that.
-Is customer dependence on the supplier important for your customer? This is not a rhetorical question, as perhaps for good reasons it is not important. But in case they want to control the fate of their cloud infrastructure, OpenStack is the perfect choice for them.
You need to know what distinguishes OpenStack from similar open source solutions, such as Eucalyptus and CloudStack, as well as from commercial solutions, such as Amazon AWS and VMware. It is useful to know in detail the properties of each solution, as well as the possibility of their deployment for different use cases, the possibility of uninterrupted operation, architecture and management tools.
The network contains tons of material on these topics, and all four IaaS solutions boast vigorously with technical advantages. Previously, you could get a bargain trick, but if you still use this approach, it’s time you hang up your shoes on a nail and look for a new job. Read the damn guide - now it's not a curse word. You need to closely explore OpenStack and other IaaS platforms and talk about specific technical issues. Therefore, if you have sales experience for Linux and custom application development, or people in your team have these skills, you are on the right track.
Although the popularity of OpenStack is growing rapidly, you should be prepared for a skeptical approach. The following objections are most common:
-General objections, such as considerations regarding the maturity of an OpenStack project and ease of installation (or its alleged absence, to be precise) and
- Technical objections, such as API compatibility with Amazon AWS or the Google Compute Engine, certain storage capacity limits or OpenStack authentication and authorization requirements.
The answer to each of these questions may require a whole article; in fact, in all our materials we have spoken and will continue to talk about all these aspects. But the basic idea is this: OpenStack is a meritocracy, in which conflicts and strategies are discussed openly and even opposing opinions are accepted for the sake of progress and success of the project. You need to immerse yourself in these conversations to be able to respond to objections that may arise when communicating with customers. And if you (and your clients) are waiting for this project maturity, it may be too late.
Remember what I used to say about tricks? Yes, some sales professionals bargain for odds. But they got a new car and vacation in Hawaii is not in competition with Tiger Woods. At heart, they know that sales is a value report to customers. Some technicians do not understand this, but I’ll reveal a secret: sales is hard work. So, putting aside this myth:
- First, determine and understand customer requirements: starting with the main usage scenario, network design, storage requirements, continuity and performance.
- Consider what improvements are needed, including improvements to integrate with existing applications, and what tools need to be used to manage business processes.
-When drawing up an invoice for materials, you should consider two slices of the purchase decision from your client: 1) requirements vs. cost 2) hardware limitations and scalability.
Have you had any OpenStack sales experience? What tasks did you have to solve? What did you learn on the go? We would like to hear your impressions in the comments to the article.
Original article in English
Want to make money with OpenStack? Congratulations and welcome to the club.
“How do you sell products and services in the market niche that OpenStack occupies?” - we are asked this question very often. Therefore, in this article I recorded some facts - to help you get started, and it is also possible to give a good marketing move if you are already working.
')
Obviously, there are many ways to enter this market, although there are general principles that we have derived from our experience of involving more than 50 customers in various industries. The tide helps the boats to get off the shoals, and the boats, in turn, deliver flour, from which you can bake a “tasty cake”, etc. with little effort. etc ... so we decided to share our knowledge in this article.
Who buys OpenStack?
First, you need to understand who can become your client, both today and tomorrow. The OpenStack platform is only 3 years old, but as far as the project’s view is concerned, the user base — and with it your customer base — is expanding and changing significantly.
At the very beginning, infrastructure providers were those who were willing to spend the most on integrating their hardware and software with the OpenStack platform. Now the most likely participants are service providers and internet application providers who want to differ from others by using OpenStack, and they are usually willing to risk more than anyone else. Who is next? Taking into account how quickly the market is changing, your customer base can drastically change after 2-3 years - and the acquisition patterns of your clients can also change a lot.
Where is OpenStack best of all?
OpenStack performs well, but not everywhere. To get started with something, make sure that when you sell products and services that complement OpenStack, you have a reasonable understanding of the following three properties of your customers:
-Do your potential customers know about the cloud? If their business is based on distributed applications that have scalability and fault tolerance built in - this is what you need.
-What is the size of your customer's cloud? Size * matters * the bigger the better. OpenStack does not justify itself for a business that does not plan to expand the cloud to more than 4 servers in it. Just like that.
-Is customer dependence on the supplier important for your customer? This is not a rhetorical question, as perhaps for good reasons it is not important. But in case they want to control the fate of their cloud infrastructure, OpenStack is the perfect choice for them.
What is OpenStack in relation to other solutions?
You need to know what distinguishes OpenStack from similar open source solutions, such as Eucalyptus and CloudStack, as well as from commercial solutions, such as Amazon AWS and VMware. It is useful to know in detail the properties of each solution, as well as the possibility of their deployment for different use cases, the possibility of uninterrupted operation, architecture and management tools.
The network contains tons of material on these topics, and all four IaaS solutions boast vigorously with technical advantages. Previously, you could get a bargain trick, but if you still use this approach, it’s time you hang up your shoes on a nail and look for a new job. Read the damn guide - now it's not a curse word. You need to closely explore OpenStack and other IaaS platforms and talk about specific technical issues. Therefore, if you have sales experience for Linux and custom application development, or people in your team have these skills, you are on the right track.
How do you respond to ordinary objections?
Although the popularity of OpenStack is growing rapidly, you should be prepared for a skeptical approach. The following objections are most common:
-General objections, such as considerations regarding the maturity of an OpenStack project and ease of installation (or its alleged absence, to be precise) and
- Technical objections, such as API compatibility with Amazon AWS or the Google Compute Engine, certain storage capacity limits or OpenStack authentication and authorization requirements.
The answer to each of these questions may require a whole article; in fact, in all our materials we have spoken and will continue to talk about all these aspects. But the basic idea is this: OpenStack is a meritocracy, in which conflicts and strategies are discussed openly and even opposing opinions are accepted for the sake of progress and success of the project. You need to immerse yourself in these conversations to be able to respond to objections that may arise when communicating with customers. And if you (and your clients) are waiting for this project maturity, it may be too late.
How to prepare for the sale of services and products for the OpenStack cloud?
Remember what I used to say about tricks? Yes, some sales professionals bargain for odds. But they got a new car and vacation in Hawaii is not in competition with Tiger Woods. At heart, they know that sales is a value report to customers. Some technicians do not understand this, but I’ll reveal a secret: sales is hard work. So, putting aside this myth:
- First, determine and understand customer requirements: starting with the main usage scenario, network design, storage requirements, continuity and performance.
- Consider what improvements are needed, including improvements to integrate with existing applications, and what tools need to be used to manage business processes.
-When drawing up an invoice for materials, you should consider two slices of the purchase decision from your client: 1) requirements vs. cost 2) hardware limitations and scalability.
Have you had any OpenStack sales experience? What tasks did you have to solve? What did you learn on the go? We would like to hear your impressions in the comments to the article.
Original article in English
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/193262/
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