How do you preserve your current sales channel while positioning for the inevitable changes coming?

I think you’ve got a couple of good options, but you can’t just open source your code and try to sell support. That model won’t work for the kind of product you provide. If you did that I guarantee I’d use your stuff and seriously doubt I’d need much support. It would be business suicide.

Instead, you could either get into the hosted Moodle business or partner with someone else who will do that part. Bringing certified SCORM 2004 to the party will give you the upper hand over every other Moodle hosting company out there. It will also allow you to compete for deals previously available only to commercial products.

Second, consider selling a Moodle drop-in SCORM Engine complete with management module on the cheap. Provide licensing that prevents distribution of your module, but make it affordable and standardize it enough that the masses can come to your web site, buy the thing, drop it in and use it. You’ll make money in your sleep.

Will the Moodle community go to school on you and just build their own version? Sure. But they are going to get there at some point anyway. Perhaps work out some terms to be granted a period of exclusivity before any community release includes a competing capability.

Lastly, keep it affordable. Don’t tempt cheapskates with a good but unobtainable product and you’ll be amazed with how many of these you sell.

Many Moodle users will use Articulate etc. to produce content for example ($$$’s).

However, this should be balanced against the hundreds of thousands of smaller Moodle users who could/would not.

Can you provide a ‘trimmed down version’ perhaps for free? (Not sure of the technical challenges there!). This would be a great marketing opportunity for you, with a pathway for users to upgrade to a paid version (and I’m sure there would be a market in the colleges, polytechnics, universities, commercial companies).

I also like Philips idea of a PHP/Moodle OS version, and a paid for ASP.Net version (when did M$ last give you software for free?). Software such as DimDim and others use this type of strategy quite successfully

the most common approach for open-source software seems to be: give it away then charge people for support.

the moodle community is huge and still growing; there is a very large potential client base there, esp. if the rustici scorm engine is the default SCORM component in moodle. plus, it helps the community at large and is for the greater good.

perhaps you can open-source the PHP/moodle version but continue to sell ASP.Net versions — people who use ASP-based solutions are used to spending big bucks!

interesting post! – I can definitely see the benefit of allowing a pluggable SCORM 2004 compliant engine into Moodle – even if it’s a “commercial” option. I’m interested to hear more about how you integrate with Moodle – do you use a new Module type or a course format?

You pose an interesting question “What would you be willing to pay to have this problem solved” – IMO – this would likely be similar or more than the price the “user” paid for their SCORM Authoring tool…. I’d guess that users of the open source tools like eXe/Reload etc probably wouldn’t want to spend extra $$ on a SCORM engine when they can “make do” with the 1.2 stuff in Moodle currently….however – the users of some of the higher end tools may be happy to pay for a tool to get it compliant now. (as long as it’s easy to install)

I have absolutely no issues with adding detail about your tool to the documentation wiki for those looking for SCORM 2004 compliance. Or for you or others to promote it’s use in the SCORM forum – It’s definitely a worthwhile tool, and if it solves some users issues, and they can afford to pay for it, then great!