National Progress Fund
National Progress Fund originally contacted us to help migrate their site, thenaderfactor.com, from thier current web service provider to a more open and less cost-prohibitive platform. We implemented thier current site design into a Drupal-based theme and helped to migrate thier content over to the new system. After the 2004 Presidential election, we modified the site again and created the new home for the progressive organization.
Vendor Lock
National Progress Fund had been using the services of a web application service provider for their site that utilizes closed-source and custom technology. What this means is that clients of companies that do this do not have complete control over thier site since they do not have access to the tools that run it. This is often called 'vendor-lock' and is a technique that is in wide use among larger web development companies today. This is way that some companies protect thier investment in developing complex tools, but it is also a way of making sure their clients cannot go elsewhere if they are not happy.
Open Source Solutions
At Advomatic, we beleive that to maintain a healthy relationship with our clients they must be free to choose another company at any time. This means that we have to keep our customers happy, and we focus on that task instead of finding ways to force them to stay put with proprietary technology. All of our clients use what is called 'open source' technology. What this means is that the client has total access to all technology, code, tools, and components required to make thier site run. If they want, they can 'pack up' thier site and take it to another provider, or even take over management themselves. This is not so with other companies more concerned with making sure you sign a non-disclosure agreement and stay at arms length to thier customized product.
Economical and Stable
The most common comment we get about open source software is 'If it's free, then it must not be as good as closed source software'. In fact, this is far from the truth. In fact, open-source software provides the backbone for most of the technology you use every day. The most popular web server software, apache, is open-source and holds about 70% of the web server market. A recent ZDNet Article reports that one of the most popular open-source database products MySQL was recently audited for bugs and proved to be more bug free than typical commercial software products. Advomatic utilizes these and many more open source products in order to deliver our clients the most powerful, flexible, and open products possible. It makes us happy to have happy clients, and open-source tools are one of the many ways we make that happen.
Think we could help you in the same way? Please let us know via our Contact Form and we'll get in touch with you right away to discuss how we can make your project a success.
