Moving to Eclipse Ia - Relevance
Last post, I just focused on the tech play-by-play. More steps to follow, but let's think about why the business-focused areas of the company might be interested in the effort:
Cost-effectiveness: The obvious play is the cost angle - the budget-focused can be happy that Eclipse and a rack of free plugins might replace user licenses for a pay-to-play suite like MS Visual Studio, Visio, a Database modeler / designer, and special-purpose tools for the other languages. It also might start you towards the rest of the open-source tools out there, like source control, databases, even applications. For large companies with 20-30 developers - these costs add up. For small companies with 2-4 developers - well, they are definitely pinching nickels 'til the buffalo squawks. Remember, the best cost justifications are hard cost justifications.
Consistency: There are hidden, soft costs with multiple toolsets, specifically around training and knowledge transfer. This gets to the old "standards" chestnut, but also makes a great case for the competing MS suite. (Ok, best-of-breed vs integration ... might this be a bit of each?)
Platform Independence: Another soft cost benefit that could translate to large hard cost benefits is the idea of platform independence. If you are faced with potentiual integrations across multiple platforms, or many future data warehouse or analytics projects, the tool(s) used to design, build, test, and administer might force your platform decisions into the future (again, MS) - or not. Eclipse will build stuff for (and run on) multiple platforms - you won't have to have your toolset force you into any future state.
Developer / Analyst Psychic Value: Ah, the really soft benefit. Although the real long-term valuable techs are comfortable and glib with the business side, it's nice to lose oneself in learning a new platform / toolset. Plus, it exposes folks to the Many Other Things that are out there.
Primarily soft benefits? Maybe. As I move forward with my implementations / conversions, I'll periodically stop to review the business value as I go.
Hey, I also found a few new Eclipse resource sites ... check out my entire link list ...
Technorati Tags: eclipse, magic, business, value, benefit
posted by James P. MacLennan at 8:52 PM
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