Persistence is a prerequisite to success in online business. There is no way you can make money online if you are not persistent. Training yourself to become persistent, despite all eventualities, is one important factor that you need to learn right from the day you venture into online business. It should be understood right from the start that making money online takes time. Do not be fooled by those scams who promise you heaven and who make you think that you can make thousands of dollars overnight. To benefit from online business, it’s really dependent upon several factors among which include skill, knowledge, effort, time, will-power and persistence.I have observed that most people are longing to earn money online. This is evident in the number of people that sign up in some of the affiliate programs I promote. However, when you consider those who persist and become serious online marketers, you get tightlipped. I believe it’s not only with me. Even other marketers have a similar problem. Do you know why? It’s partly because many people join hoping to make quick money without necessarily knowing what it takes to succeed in online business.Persistence is an unknown secret to most would-be successful people in online business. But it’s what has turned many online marketers into millionaires. Of course there are other contributing factors, but persistence plays a pivotal role and is a key ingredient to success in your business. Hard work and persistence can believably help you to turn your desires and goals into their monetary value.Actually there is no way you can accumulate wealth online without putting your energy to work persistently and determinedly on your business. To make money and be counted among the successful online marketers, you must work consistently and smartly. Know that success does not come so easily. There are many obstacles along the road that can ruin your mental and physical power to work on your business. It’s only those that have the characteristic of persistence that win.Robert Schuller once said that “When the journey gets tough as it sometimes will, rest if you should but don’t quit”. Yes, that’s what separates winners from losers and successful people from ordinary people. Disappointingly, most would-be successful online marketers pull out easily when faced with a short-term defeat or disappointment. My simple advice is that don’t be like them. Learn to motivate yourself, to like what you do and to pursue it to the end. Learn to think persistence, you will win!To emphasize further my point, let me share with you this example of one of my colleagues who was tired of being employed. One day, he resigned unexpectedly from his well-paying job. His employers were so disappointed and surprised to lose such a resourceful and hardworking man. His family members too, especially his spouse, were so concerned with how he would earn a living for a family of 4 grown-up children, all in advanced grades. But for him, enough was enough. He preferred being self-employed. He had developed a passion for writing books on Self-Discovery.Upon his resignation, he was given his terminal benefits, which he invested in publishing his books. However, the business became so difficult for him and could not make any reasonable amount of money to support his family as expected. Do you know why? He lacked marketing skills. But he could not go back to his former job. He had spent all his terminal benefits on the business and it wasn’t giving him returns, yet he had people to look after. He lost weight day after day but he persisted and this made him think, rethink and to seek support from other people.Despite all the disappointments he encountered, he continued to work on his business. He got to learn how to market his products. He later discovered that he could also organize workshops, seminars, trainings and promotional talks in his field of expertise to earn additional income. Not only that he came up with an idea of selling advertising space in his books and many business people pay to have their businesses advertised. Do you see how problems can be turned into great opportunities? Do you see how persistence pays?Currently, he has a well established business and is a well known expert of self-discovery. He earns his living entirely from his business. He is a self-made motivational speaker, writer, publisher and consultant. The secrets behind his success are majorly will-power, determination and persistence.Lack of persistence is one of the primary causes of failure in online business. It’s a weakness common to the majority of people. My advice to you is that you must overcome this weakness to make money online. You must have the will-power to work on your business consistently. You must keep your desire to make money online burning all the time and right from day one. Think persistence, persistence, persistence!The weaker your desires are, the weaker the results. The stronger your desire to make money online is, the stronger the results. Did you know that it’s a big amount of fire which makes a big amount of heat? My friend, keep your desire strong and burning! It’s a key contributing factor to persistence!People who make money online are those whose minds are prepared to attract wealth. If you find yourself weak in persistence, the time is now to acquire this important characteristic of successful entrepreneurs. In my forthcoming articles, I would like to further share with you some important tips on how to train yourself to become persistent and how to assess your persistence levels to achieve what you want in life.
How Persistence Is A Primary Contributing Factor To Success In Your Online Business
Changing Voice Telecommunications for Business
As technology for voice telecommunications continues to advance, every new breakthrough presents the potential for both a serious challenge and an exciting opportunity for businesses. While many people may prefer to avoid changing technology that the office is familiar and comfortable with, those that adapt to new products may be able to increase the efficiency of their operations, as well as cut overhead costs.Resistance to ChangeThe majority of us tend to avoid major change of any type, and the business world is no different. It’s not difficult to understand why many businesses resist new technologies that can affect their operations-if not their infrastructure. When a new voice telecom product hits the market, there are many steps involved before a company can simply going sign up. Someone in the business must first research the product, understand its function, features, options and capabilities, and assess whether it makes sense for the office. If the new product is a good fit for their infrastructure with the potential to boost productivity and/or save money, then there’s the work involved in incorporating it: investing in the technology, getting it set up, training the employees to use it, and so on. Businesses that have strong IT support will have a big advantage with each of these steps.Gaining the Competitive AdvantageNot every new voice telecom product is going to be a game changer. Some mark only minor improvements over their predecessors, some are using different technology to roughly the same result. However, for businesses for which connectivity and reliable service are paramount, investing in cutting edge voice telecom can be the difference that gives a competitive advantage – even if the benefits do not appear dramatic at first glance.What’s Next for Voice Telecom?For roughly a century and a half, the telephone was the method for voice telecommunications. With the invention of voice over IP (VoIP) technology, the industry of voice telecom has undergone a noticeable shift. Now, more and more businesses are finding that by using VoIP – which offers phone calls over the internet – they can cut costs and experience an improved quality of voice and reliable connectivity. Furthermore, VoIP allows users to integrate computer applications such as efax, web conferencing, and email. These days, deciding which voice telecom to use for your business is often a choice between integrated voice and data services over internet, Ethernet, and other methods of delivery. The abundance of options can be intimidating, but the opportunities to improve business efficiency make voice telecommunications an industry to keep a close eye on.
Positioning Your Company for Debt Financing
Positioning Your Company for Debt Financing:There was a time in the old days when going to the bank was the only way to get outside capital for your business. These days with the explosion of raising equity investment, many of the guidelines for running a company have been revolutionized. Unfortunately this new phenomenon is only true for companies with super “star power”, because these companies have potential to create sky-rocket return earnings.For everyone else, sticking to fundamentals is where it’s at. Building your company incrementally, following a pre-prepared business plan, watching expenses, and increasing sales. When your company moves beyond its launch, it begins to operate much like a bank. On the financial side you will be making credit decisions
involving your customers. Some will have to pay C.O.D., some you will extend net 30 day terms. In this sense you are now becoming a banker for your customers.Without getting into how inexpensive debt financing ultimately is compared to equity (try 20% annualized interest versus 20% ownership lock stock and barrel), in certain situations the time honored tradition of borrowing money can be the best solution for increasing growth or starting a company.By knowing what commercial finance companies look for, you will become a much more attractive prospect.1. Concentration – This means putting all your eggs in one basket. Avoid going out and making a large sale to a customer and then not continuing your sales effort to find more customers. The risk of a problem developing with your main customer, or for whatever reason they are no longer buying from you can obviously be detrimental to your success. Finance companies look for incoming revenue to be spread evenly over a number of customers.2. Creditworthiness – Who are you lending your hard earned assets to? What kind of due diligence do you perform on new customers? The challenge here is whether to accept a lucrative sale with a company that could never get credit from any type of finance company. You are essentially telling yourself that you know better than the banker about loaning money. Finance companies will respect a business owner that has a thorough credit checking process and a number of stable credit worthy customers.3. Book keeping – While some businesses send out all their accounting to outside agencies, it is helpful to have a qualified book keeper on staff. When it comes time to seek financing, being able to produce an instant fiscal snapshot of your company will show the sophistication of your operation. Finance companies appreciate businesses that keep a close eye on their books.4. Taxes – Pay them. Using the Internal Revenue Service as your funder becomes expensive. Whenever you work with a finance company, you will be pledging assets as collateral, thus the nature of debt financing. When you fail to make tax payments, the government steps in and places a lien against those same assets essentially stepping into first position. This leaves the finance company with money outstanding to your business and no collateral to back it up. This places your entire relationship in default. When going to closing on financing expect to sign a form that allows the finance company to receive duplicate correspondence from the IRS. This is standard procedure to track tax problems. Owing taxes does not mean you cannot get financing. It is entirely possible to receive a subordinated debt agreement from the IRS which allows the finance company to work with you unencumbered.5. Bankruptcy – If you have ever entered into a bankruptcy proceeding whether personal or business, own up to it right away. It will come out, and being up front about the circumstances will enhance the necessity to overlook the past difficulties.6. Applications – Finance companies ask for a variety of information when performing their due diligence. Do not be alarmed, they are not trying to steal your secrets. They need to feel comfortable with you and your company. Each company has its own threshold for fact checking. Invariably the finance companies that do the most thorough job are the most reliable and safest to do business with. Finance companies like working with a business that takes the time to put a loan package together in advance of asking for financing. Typically you can start with; Interim Balance & Income Statement, Interim Profit & Loss Statement, Last Year End Statements, Accounts Payables Aging Report, Accounts Receivables Aging Report, and of course Tax Returns.7. Contracts – Be prepared for onerous language. Finance companies cannot sugar coat the reality that if something goes wrong they need to exercise their rights. They have to go into the relationship always thinking that the absolute worst case scenario will unfold. Once a finance company finds itself being defrauded, stolen from or payments not made without explanation, it’s too late to insert stronger language for protection. By and large the language is standardized and walking from a deal to start shopping for less demanding legalisms won’t produce much. Remember this, a contract is just paper in a file cabinet until you default on your agreement. Stay within what you agreed upon and all the tough language won’t matter. Even if you start having financial difficulties, get in touch with your finance company immediately. You can greatly reduce the chance of default by showing that you are pro-active with your situation.8. Using the money for the right reasons – This sounds obvious but in certain cases it can be highly relevant. You hear a lot about going to the right Venture Capital Firm that would handle your type of investment. In some ways that holds true for debt finance companies. They tend to work within industries that they feel comfortable. Additionally the type of financing company will depend on your plans for the money. If you are trying to set up a new business infrastructure, then a working capital line of credit is not your best option. You will probably do better with a term style loan that will allow you to amortize the expense over a period of years.9. Management Integrity – Also like equity investment, get a good team together and hold onto them. Finance companies raise red flags when a long time Financial Officer who has been the contact person at the company since the inception of the relationship all of a sudden leaves without explanation. Again, always fearing the worst, the finance company could unjustly feel that something untoward was afoot and begin to scrutinize your account more closely. Even though finance companies are not part owners of your business, they are partners in your success just like your good customers. Keep them abreast of breaking news.10. Be Professional – Answer calls and messages expeditiously, be prepared with information, show up on time. When its crunch time and you need an extra fifty thousand dollars for a week to get a better deal from a vendor, you would be surprised how much mileage you can get by being a courteous and thoughtful customer to your finance company.
Best Advertising and Marketing Agency in Delhi
India is a developing country and staying at the second place in the world for its population. Advertising and marketing industry in India play an important role to establish startups and making bands for many old organizations. An advertising agency has the great scope in India to earn the profit in present days.An advertisement is known to be the main factor for a successful business. There are several types of advertisements. With the increasing requirements of advertisements for growing business, there has been a noticeable growth in the number of media advertising agencies.There are different forms of advertising. The various methods of advertising products through Print, televisions, newspapers, radio, Internet, emails and so forth. The main objective of these agencies is to take benefit of advertisements to increase the sales of a company and thereby overall profit.The advertising agencies in India present are not just developing creative ideas for print and TV commercials, but are diversifying the ads in a big way. They are searching for newer paths to reach customers. Thus they are doing by harnessing the actual power of unconventional media like ground promotions in malls, events, Radio, movies, Internet, celebrity endorsements, etc.Thus, a single ad agency in present is offering a plethora of services from content creation, developing the artwork, print media, TVCs, radio jingles, internet advertising, promotion in movies, outdoor advertising, POPs, media planning, public relations services, social media, marketing consultancy services, amongst others.By using the media advertising services for marketing your products, you can save a lot of time and money. It is also vital to bear in mind that your advertising company should have a thorough idea about your products so that marketing is done effectively and efficiently. Poor advertisements lead to poor response and lower sales for everyone. So it is crucial that you chalk out a plan along with your advertising firm in order to market your products as you wish.Centumad is a creative advertising and marketing agency in Delhi NCR, India. It caters to the field of advertising, media and marketing services. Centumad provides all the information from the industry, from latest news updates, discussions, views expressed by famous people in the area, analytical information, brand updates, events, latest trends and much more. With a vast consumer base and a good reputation over the last 35 years in the industry, the company offers great opportunities for advertisers to advertise with them and reach out effectively to their customer.
Tips in Choosing an Online Travel Agency
Making use of an online travel agency has its benefits. For one, you don’t have to go through the hassle of visiting a booking office in person. And two, you can often save money if you book your travels online. And of course, there’s the fact that you can have several choices to pick from. You can easily navigate from travel website to another, comparing prices and services. This way, you will be able to find the most appropriate deals with the best prices. Booking online is also quick and easy. It’s just a matter of making a few clicks and you are done.Now, just because booking your travels using an online travel agency is easy doesn’t mean you are not susceptible to making mistakes. If you are not careful, you might end up choosing the worst possible offer for you. One thing you should always remember is that you should not believe in everything that you hear from travel agencies especially with regards to promos and discounted offers. Sometimes, a promo may look like a great deal in the surface but if you look closer into it, it really won’t benefit you the way you expect it to. That said, always weigh things before making any decisions. Don’t be blinded by discounts or promos nor allow them to cloud your judgments.Here are a few practical tips on how you should go about in booking your travels on the internet.1. Ask around. You could ask a friend, a family member or a co-worker who has experience booking his or her travels online. Ask for their recommendations. A recommendation from someone you personally know is much better than the reviews you will find online. Don’t rely too much from recommendations though.2. Always make sure that you are dealing with a legit travel website. You will be transacting online so there will be people out there planning to scam your money away. So as much as possible, stay away from shady and suspicious travel websites.3. Try requesting information from a travel website. You can gauge the quality of the services of a travel agency based on its response time to your inquiries. If the agency takes forever to reply to your simple inquiries, then it’s probably not worth your time. But if it quickly responds and assists you if you ask more questions, then the agency is probably worthy of your investment.4. Ask for recommendations from the agency itself. Let’s say for instance that you are planning to tour Canada. You can try asking the agency which of their packages should you purchase. If the agency really cares about their clients, they will recommend to you the most appropriate travel package for you.5. Compare prices. This is why you should look around for several travel agencies so that you have choices to compare. Again, this is easy to do because most travel agencies these days maintain their own websites.These are some of the most important tips in choosing an online travel agency.
Can You Really Start Your Own Online Business From Home?
The first thing to remember is that anybody who takes consistent action and is willing to work hard can be successful with a work from home online business. This includes people who have never owned a business before or have no idea where to begin. There are a wide range of online business opportunities available, irrespective of whether or not you’ve got some online business knowledge. You don’t even need your own products to sell.Why Start Your Own Online Business?The surge of billions in online spending has created an incredible opportunity for entrepreneurs who are looking for a legitimate work from home business.The cost of creating your own business online is considerably less in comparison to regular offline ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses. And, best of all, when you are setting up business from home on the internet, you can run it as a ‘side business’ to your existing job. In fact, after a while many online entrepreneurs make sufficient income online and end up ditching their old job altogether!How Can I Do It If I Don’t Have Anything To Sell?People are willing to pay for products and services that help solve their problems or make their life easier or more enjoyable. And, if you want to find those products and services, where is the first place you look? You got it, the internet!How is this possible to start your own online business if you’ve got nothing to sell? The answer is that you can use business models like affiliate marketing. This is where you can make money from selling other peoples products to a worldwide market. There are over 2 billion people online, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days a year!And don’t forget, due to the huge reach of the internet, when you start your own home business online your customers can come from around the globe, not just from near where live.Yes, You Can Do It!There are no age restrictions or required qualifications before you can start your own online business. Anyone from any background and any education can quickly get started online and take advantage of the new digital economy that is flourishing on the internet. If you can you use email and surf the internet, you have all the “skills” you need to get started.Having said that, you do have to be prepared to learn an effective skill set known as online marketing. This will give you a practical opportunity to create a solid business online and reach your financial objectives over time. After that, how much money you make and how quickly you make it is up to you.
Online Business – Is It for You?
I am going to start with a bit of a ‘controversial statement (as I am quite prone to do):-Starting a Business, Online (or Offline) is NOT for everyone & actually may NOT be for YOU.If you are looking at working for yourself and starting up a business, you might be the best Joiner, Painter, Mechanic, Salesperson, etc, BUT it may not be for you – If you don’t have or acquire certain traits, skills and experience, you will probably fail (maybe ending up owing a lot of money!) and being an employee is probably better for you: especially if you prefer:-regular hours,regular pay,regular holidays,sickness pay, orare risk averse,lack willpower and stamina.Working for yourself and starting a business is definitely NOT a job. You have got to ask yourself if starting up and (hopefully) running a viable, successful business is for YOU – and no-one else.This is exactly the same for an Online business, maybe more so. Just setting up a website for your Offline business is definitely NOT classed as running an Online business – really, all Offline businesses should have a website as an online presence as a minimum, however if you are really set on setting up an Online business, then there are specifics that must be addressed:-It is NOT EASYIt takes TIMEIt takes MONEY (maybe not a great deal initially but it does cost if done correctly!)It is NOT a ‘Get Rich Quick’ solutionYou will need to LEARN & develop a new set of skills and be comfortable with MarketingAn understanding of Computers will be required & you must be willing to learnIn comparison to a ‘traditional’ bricks & mortar’ offline business, an Online business can be very cost-effective as a start-up. So… What do YOU consider as an Online business?Lots of people have found many ways to run a successful (profitable?) Online business, I have personally made a decent living selling items and information on a ‘popular’ auction site but the method(s) I have learned are only a few and I am currently still looking to learn other methodology and processes.As an example, please ‘Google’ (funny how this has become a ‘verb’!) or place in your search engine “make money online” – at the time of writing this gives 165 Million results, so there are many ways (some good, some not so!) regarding making money online. Have a good look around and see how big the online business is, and how vast the number of opportunities are. The only thing I recommend is NOT to buy anything before you have had a good look around – there are lots of scams and totally useless products/programs out there – so Caveat Emptor:- ‘Buyer Beware’!I want you to understand the range of opportunities out there, and that what may be suitable for some people may not be suitable for others.Looking at things from a positive angle however, I believe the plus points of an online business are:-Anyone can start and run a business, with no restrictions on age, race, gender, education, privilegeNo commuting or having to get up and get ready for an early or late startYou are working for yourself, not as a wage slave for an ungrateful boss/company
Is Invoice Finance a Credible Alternative to Bank Loans?
Invoice finance (IF) is not considered a credible source of finance among some business owners because of its relatively high cost and onerous terms. Is this perception justified? I will argue it is not with the introduction of single invoice finance.What is invoice finance?It is the sale of a company’s sales ledger for cash providing an ongoing source of cash as invoices are issued to customers by the company. The company might retain the collection of cash or transfer this and the associated credit risk, to the funder.Some conventional IF facilities can impose numerous types of fees and charges, and require security and a commitment from the company to sell the its entire sales ledger to the finance company.Some companies offer a refreshing financial alternative, offering to buy just a single invoice and charging as few as just one fee and generally offering a more flexible funding alternative.What is single invoice finance?As its name suggests, it is the purchase of one invoice for cash from a company. The company does not need to sell any further invoices so single invoice finance can be used by companies to raise cash as they need it. Also, they might not need to provide security such as a debenture or a personal guarantee.Single or multiple IF are effective tools for cash management because they liquidate illiquid assets i.e., they convert debtors into cash. The cash realised can be reinvested by the company in profitable projects or used to pay back expensive debt.Some borrowers might argue that on an annualised basis, the cost of invoice finance is high compared to a conventional loan. That comparison is like comparing apples to oranges because the two financing instruments work differently. A loan is a continuous source of finance whereas single invoice finance is discrete – providing finance for up to 90 days or less. Annualisation of the cost of invoice finance is not therefore consistent with its use.Though the interest rate on a loan might look relatively attractive, the cost of arranging and administering it must also be factored in, such as the arrangement, commitment, non-utilisation, and exit fees, plus servicing charges and legal costs of documentation. There might also be costs to pursue and recover bad debts, or to pay for credit protection. Invoice finance has its own arrangement and administration costs that might be more or less than a bank loan.Invoice finance is therefore a credible alternative to a loan because:
it converts a company’s debtors into cash that may then be reinvested to potentially generate positive return for the company.
the company can transfer debtor credit risk.
it avoids using up a bank’s limited credit capacity for a company and
it diversifies the company’s sources of funds so reducing its reliance on the banking sector.
companies can use it to raise cash as needed
security might not be needed
Business Finance Brokers: Knowing How They Can Help You
Planning to purchase a business unfortunately do not know where to start looking for finance? Are you currently a bit too busy to be undertaking some researching plus negotiating with business finance brokers? Have you been beginning to lose hope because you are always rejected by lending companies or banking institutions?When your reply is a definite ‘yes’ to these questions then it could be the very best time and also a smart idea to obtain the aid of a business finance broker who is able to accomplish all the finance arrangements in your part.It truly is significant that you get a very good business finance broker as a good broker provides a dedicated one-to-one service and keeps you fully up to date of the available alternatives, what every single option entails along with its benefits and downside. A good broker is knowledgeable in finding a wide range of suitable finance options without delay. In addition, he offers the expertise to negotiate a better deal than you can do by yourself.A business finance broker is aware of which type of financing you need. The kind of financing that you will need will depend on your financial means, your expected profit margin, the sector you want to enter plus some other factors. A broker makes the whole process simple and easy; in most cases he gathers some basic information from you via phone and provides a decision in principle within 24 or 48 hours.When you have determined which financial providers to approach, the brokers can help you tailor and present your proposals in the right way. In order to help tailor your proposals and also to avoid rejections they keep up to date with any policy changes at banks.The method that you present your proposal can often be the cause of being rejected for finance.The moment you ponder on raising funds to obtain a business, what comes first to your mind is to get finance from banks. Yet you ought to be knowledgeable that there are a myriad of lenders these days and some of which specialize in particular products or industries. For instance if perhaps you wish to purchase a garage business, it would make sense to request finance from a lender which specializes in funding garages.A finance broker is knowledgeable with the diverse market for finance provision. Odds are that you’ll find the process complicated and time intensive and find yourself land up picking the wrong business finance provider. You need the aid of a broker to get the best deal.In regards to raising finance, a one-dimensional approach can be a bad idea. Quite often, banks lend on inflexible terms and more frequently they turn down individuals who are with greatest need.Business finance brokers aid you have a whole lot more options besides banks. He will likewise tailor a financial package that suits your needs as well as resources from a wide selection of finance companies and kinds of finance.Because brokers are up to par and extensively knowledgeable of the financial provision market they are fully aware precisely how much leverage they have in negotiations. Thus the moment you have selected a number of providers, the broker can use his expertise in negotiating to obtain a deal with the terms and rates that best accommodates your needs.Bear in mind that the choice is always yours. A broker is there to offer you options and also assist you have an understanding of them to produce a well-informed choice.A business finance broker can help beyond purchasing a business – he can assist you obtain working capital as your business grows and expands. Brokers also offer assistance on business planning, consulting, management buyouts, business restructuring, and also buy-ins and turnaround finance.By simply using the services of a reliable finance broker like Enable Finance you’ll save yourself money and time plus obtain a financial deal that accommodates you best.
8 Reasons to Choose Commercial Library Instead of Open-Source One
Open-source software solutions, including components and libraries, are the preferred choice for many developers who need to solve some particular task or add a feature to the software being developed. Yet commercial libraries can offer more than you can think of.Open-source software (i.e. software offered under free licenses with freely accessible source code) gains popularity day by day. The reason is obvious – price drops for the end-user software make it harder to invest cash into software development beforehand. And in case of in-house activities stiffer IT budgets make programmers choose code snippets of unidentified quality.However while open-source libraries and code snippets seem to have zero initial cost of use, they start to consume resources later, during life cycle of your software. And commercial libraries can offer more than you can think of.I will focus on professionally developed commercial solutions: putting a price tag on your code piece doesn’t magically turns the code into the industry-level commercial product. Commercial library must be evaluated thoroughly to answer the question of how professional it is. Not everything with a price tag is good, that’s obvious. But if it’s commercial, chances are great that you will get the things missing in open-source offerings.Let’s review what exactly commercial software (and specifically component and class libraries for software developers) can offer, and then discuss objections and counter-objections.Documentation and samples. With modern APIs becoming increasingly complex documentation and samples allow easier and faster code reuse. You just copy the piece of code from the sample and it just works. If you need guidance, you can look into documentation to figure out where to go next or why the function could fail.Adepts of open-source software claim that the source code is the best documentation. Maybe it can work as documentation when the code itself is well-documented, with comments and well-written (with proper formatting and variable and function names). In most cases the code is not the most entertaining reading in the world though.Various studies show that presence of source code sometimes helps in diagnostics of various issues, but does not help much in use of the software simply because you don’t know what to look for.Also documentation should be written by technical writers, not programmers – programmers don’t like and don’t know how to write proper documentation. Let programmers do coding and technical writers write text.Carefully crafted APIs Any software as a complex engineering product requires design and development before it can be implemented in bare metal in code. Writing 1000 lines of code from scratch is not the same as designing those 1000 lines beforehand and then implementing the design. Proper design can turn 1000 lines of code into 200, and bad design would lead to 10K lines of code that needs to be written.When it comes to open-source libraries, many of them are developed evolutionary, i.e. something small is created, then features are added like new toys on the new year tree. And in the end you get the construct that is as fragile as a new year tree.In opposite, commercial APIs are in most cases designed with both ease of use and extensibility in mind. Often there are several levels of APIs in there, for low-level operations (where you get maximum control) and for high-level tasks (where you an get the job done quickly).Finally, open-source libraries are mainly developed by coders, while professional commercial solutions are usually designed by software architects and analysts, and only then coded by programmers.Unique featuresAs the goal of open-source developers is to deliver something and do this fast, usually only the most popular functionality in certain application domain is implemented.Developers of commercial libraries have to stand out of the crowd and implementing wider scope of functionality is one method to accomplish this task.The problem of extensibility (i.e. getting a feature that you need) can not be easily solved with open-source other than coding the feature yourself, which is almost always not an option, especially when the issue to be addressed is far from your area of expertise. With commercial software you can negotiate the extension to be made for you or to be included into the future software releases.The motivation of the commercial vendor is to keep his business running, and this is the effective motivation. For open-source developer even one-time fee you can pay him can be not sufficient to motivate the developer to extend the product (which could have been abandoned long time ago, as it frequently happens in open-source world).One more benefit of unique features offered by the component vendor is that such features let you create a USP (unique selling point) of the end-user software that you create. And when you do in-house development, those feature let you please the boss and show your attitude towards helping your colleagues and the business itself to act efficiently. In other words, those features show that you care about your user.ReliabilityOne of the most valuable assets of every business is trust of its customers. You can’t run a business for a long time when customers don’t trust you. And in software business, where relations are long-term and information flies easily, trust is a must.When the bug is encountered, it’s the best interest for the commercial vendor to fix it, or trust will be lost. And the customer needs to be assured, that should the issue arise it will be addressed in the shortest possible time.With open-source libraries, even if you submit a bug (when the developer provided you with such possibility), you usually have little hope for this bug become fixed in any foreseeable future. In opposite, bug fixing is sometimes offered by open-source developers for a fee that far exceeds the cost of the license for comparable commercial product.MaintenanceIT world is about links and connections between various actors – servers and services, client systems, mobile devices etc. With so many actors, changes and updates are frequent and you have the environment to which your software must adapt all the time. Otherwise you get compatibility problems, dissatisfied and complaining customers and finally business losses.When you use third-party components in your software, they need to be adapted as well. And as with new features, adaptation of third-party components and libraries is much easier when the author is motivated for this.Also for the running business maintenance and compatibility updates are one of the ways to inform their users that the business can be relied upon. So there exists a big chance that the required adaptation will be performed by the vendor even without your request.ExpertiseIt’s not a secret that you often don’t need a third-party code when you can write this code yourself. That is true for general-purpose code, but can you take the risk doing the same in low-level programming or neural networking, OCR or cryptography?No person is a specialist in everything, that’s why we have so many different professions and specialists that focus on some one particular question.Commercial vendors, especially those offering specialized software and components, use services of such narrow specialists to provide high-quality products. The vendor has a specialist in the application domain (eg. in OCR or networking), a specialist in software design and a specialist in programming environments and computer platforms. Cooperation between those specialists lets you get a reliable product. But in case of open-source this is a rare situation. Specialists in application domains most often prefer doing their job for money and spend free time with their families and hobbies. It’s hard (though not impossible) to find a specialist who is a good software architect and programmer at the same time.As a consequence, with commercial software you usually get a product of the higher quality (not just programming quality but quality of the application domain) than in case of open-source.AssistanceInitial development of the open-source software is often driven by curiosity, desire for publicity and other similar emotional factors. This works well for a short time, usually enough for initial development, but not for maintenance and especially not for assisting you with the product. In other words, if you need help, you need to search for it anywhere you can… or pay for it to the developers.As with bug-fixing the cost of such individual assistance services usually exceeds the cost of the license for commercial software. The reason is simple – the business of the commercial vendor is based on insurance model, where total development and support expenses are spread among all licenses sold no matter how much support you “consume” (extra support packages are sometimes offered as well, but the overall scheme is the one described). In case of open-source products the only source to compensate development and support is to charge you for everything possible.Investment in futureThe “save tomorrow for tomorrow, think about today instead” mantra has brought humanity to the edge of ecological catastrophe. Apple’s bias towards end-users (which is just a cloak for desire to sell more hardware) has hut the whole software industry badly. People are used to pay 0 to 1 dollar for software and then ask “what? Do I have to pay another $0.99 for a new version of the software title that I’ve been using for 3 years? Are you insane?”. That attitude poisons the industry and slows down innovation. For some time the race for the first places in the AppStore and Play Store will make developers invest their time and resources into software titles, but calculations and studies show, that this race is more of a lottery with a little chance for small developers to succeed.Paying for software and motivating the users to pay as well is a culture of consuming the software which will let the ISV industry, and especially small vendors, continue to innovate in future and do this with satisfactory budgets.Finally, if you don’t pay for books you read, writers will stop writing and there will be no new literature to steal to read. If nobody pays for software now, there will be no skilled vendors in 5-10 years and no good and sophisticated software. Unlike music records, software vendors can’t give software away for free and do something else for living – that’s not a viable business model. So they will simply go out of business, and the world will become full of open-source stuff, unsupported and of unknown quality.Objections* There are many open-source titles, which deliver exceptional quality. Yes, there do exist software titles (mainly end-user and server software, rarely libraries) which are open-source and which offer great value. But if you look carefully, most of them are (a) commercial products, just sponsored by big companies or institutions, (b) often free only for non-commercial use but who reads those EULAs, (c) not as great as initially seems, with internal management problems, bloated code and design and implementation flaws that lead to necessity to rewrite the titles from scratch from time to time.* Open-source is free and nothing can beat such price. Yes, the cheese in the mouse trap is also free. But unlike the mouse trap, free software is a trap for each mouse involved. There are costs involved in maintenance and bug-fixing and in migrating to other solutions later if the chosen open-source stuff suddenly stops working. And such costs can exceed the initial costs of the commercial solution in a several powers, especially if you try to rely business processes on free solutions. Even when you keep using the open-source solution, assistance either needs to be paid or you need to hope that someone in programming community helps you for free (with absolutely no guarantee).* Open-source offers source code. Yes, and so do most commercial libraries. Commercial end-user software is rarely offered with source code, that’s true, but as mentioned, there’s very little use in such source code (other than to satisfy curiosity).* Open-source is documented. Yes, with mystifying comments and unreadable and badly formatted code. Wiki and publicly maintained knowledgebases are a weak substitute to professionally written documentation.* I can ask for samples in the programming community. You can ask but this doesn’t promise you the answer, neither you get a guarantee of the quality of the provided answer. The fact that something works in one particular case doesn’t prove reliability of the solution in real-life conditions.* Open-source has as much features as commercial software. Yes, the feature list can be the same initially although this needs proof: commercial libraries have to stand out and features are a good method. In any case extensibility of open-source software is lower due to lack of the main driving force for such extensibility and often due to bad design.* Open-source software has great APIs. Yes, and shamans can sometimes offer good medical services. But it’s a better idea to go to the hospital.* I can modify the open-source product myself. Yes, and you can do the same with the source code of the commercial library.* Open-source can also deliver unique features. Yes it can, but only for some time. All easy (and inexpensive) unique features become common quite fast. And really unique features need resources to be implemented.* Open-source is better tested due to larger audience. “It’s better tested” doesn’t mean better quality. It means only more bugs in the bug tracker. And as bug fixing is generally slower in open-source than in commercial software, the latter one has a better chance to be of higher quality.* the open-source library I use worked fine for me for years. Yes, in closed environments and in simple tasks the code which has been tested once will work for years and decades. However if this code communicates or interacts with other software and network, changes of external actors can bring your business down in minutes, and when this happens, you will have very little time to react.* I have very simple tasks where no expertise is needed and where open-source works for me. A match (the one to get the light with) is a trivial thing. Or is it? The components of the match were developed for decades by numerous scientists in chemistry, biology and physics. Things you consider trivial now are the result of years and centuries of scientific research. And in software there are no trivial tasks and no trivial solutions.* I can get assistance from community, I don’t need a paid service. And you surely ask community for health care, legal services, car repair services etc. But this is not effective and is like playing with fire – one incompetent suggestion can get you into serious trouble. Professional services are a must for any activity of the modern civilization.