What are advantages and disadvantages of integrated services?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of running a software business in providing consultancy services based around open-source technologies that they developed themselves?

• This question refers to companies which invented MySQL, Phonegap, or even Ruby on Rails. They make open source software that are widely available and being used by developers or software companies. Why did they first start the project free? What kind of business model are they thinking about when they first started? Is it a good business model? What are the advantages and disadvantage of this against business model based around proprietary software like Oracle which provides consultancy around their Oracle SQL database?

• Answer:

  The main advantage is the licensing costs involved is almost negligible. The main disadvantage is corporations have a wrong assumption that if you are developing using open source technologies then a) Your costs will be less b) Your coding practices will not be that great You need the customers to believe that this is not the case. This will be your biggest challenge. I found that the way to easily procure consultancy contracts is to solve their smaller problems possibly for free and then build a trust with them. This will also ensure that they will have a good professional relationship with you which will help when they have to take a bigger decision regarding your main consultancy work.