Dog Food

Looking forward to day 2 of Nedstat Academy

I am looking forward to day 2 of the Nedstat Academy training. It reinforces everything I said about the importance of web analytics for years. Come to think of it in 'gids informatiesector 1998/1999 I wrote an article about web analytics 'Bereiksmeeting op het Internet'. Even then the list of websites includes Nedstat, among others like webtrends and ABC and Nielsen Media.

T3n

Come to think of it I am reading more and more German / Deutsche magazine. Latest is T3N tagline Open Source & Web, the magazine is actually produced with Typo3. Obviously I also read CT professionally and last but not least Yacht & Palstek, you guessed it about sailing!! Perhaps I should do my next posting in Deutsche Sprache?

Nedstat academy

Funnels are a powefull but vastly under estimated functionality of Sitestat. When you really understand Funnels you will be able to increase your conversion rates. What a great thought while looking outside of the windows at Nedstat's HQ in Amsterdam.

Fat Lady

The Don't bother school vs the Metrics school. How to take into account the influence of social media.

Commercial CPU based licences

Software is a peculiair product. Take a look at commercial software, you pay a licence fee and on top of that support & maintenance. Support & maintenance (S&M) in some cases is only to be paid the first year after you acquired the right to use the software. However most commercial software vendors require you to pay S&M right from day one. It seems S&M is kind of an insurance / warranty to have the right to upgrade to a new release and be able to log tickets in case there is a problem with the licensed product. 

Kind of a strange system if you think about it. You buy the right to use an 'imperfect' product and right upfront are forced to pay for the warranty to have issues fixed, although you don't receive a garantuee issues will be fixed. In case a new version with less /different flaws is release the S&M gives the right to use the newer version of the software. Sofar so good, but the funny thing is that you have to pay S&M per licence and licence in many if not most cases are CPU based. A CPU based license has a huge TCO, both in acquiring licences and the S&M cost. 

So why do you have to pay S&M per CPU, the software vendor fixing the flaw doesn't have to do more work whether the software runs on one or multiple CPU's. The number of issues / flaws don't multiple with the number of CPU's.

Someone might argue this model will be difficult to sustain simply because TCO is getting too high. The alternative being investigated is Open Source Software, where there is no licence fee and no support unless you specifically want it. Yet the right to upgrade to a new version is 'free'.

In case you an organisation doesn't feel confident running a software product without support they can opt for a supported open source model. Meaning you pay S&M on top of the Open Source Software product and sign a contract with the company / a company that is closely linked to the Open Source Software product.

No upfront licence fees and you only pay for support if you decide it is a must. The nice thing is that support for Open Source Software is in many cases server based and not CPU based.

Portal infra

Good discussion about how to prepare for the next step in our Portal infra. Utilizing both hardware and software as efficient as possible. Not always the most preferable but still tactical approach.