Congratulations to Matthew Isison (Boxford, MA), Kimberley Liao (Sterling, VA) and David Suozzi (Albuquerque, NM). All three winners choose to discuss the viability of Open Source software as a business concept. Despite the paradoxical nature of profiting from free software, the winners insightfully identified various methods of revenue generation, such as charging for support, tiered licensing, product tie-ins, and advertising. The winning essays may be viewed at www.halfpricecomputerbooks.com/scholarship.php.
The three topics for the Fall 2004 scholarship were:
1. In 1993 John Gilmore of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said, “The Internet treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” Is this still true today?
2. Despite offering software for free, companies such as Netscape and MySQL AB have proven that you can make money from Open Source products. Is this a viable long-term business concept? Why or why not?
3. Google, eBay, Yahoo!, Microsoft… been there, done that. What’s your favorite little known website?
“This was our third scholarship competition and was without a doubt the best bunch of entries we had ever received,†says scholarship administrator Jessica Cook. “They were all very well researched and thought-provoking. Especially controversial was the topic of Internet censorship; both proponents and opponents brought up some very interesting issues and insights in support of their standpoints.â€
Headquartered in British Columbia, Canada, Half Price Computer Books is a leading provider of discount technical and non-technical books for the North American market. Independently owned and operated, the company has increased its sales and market share every year since its inception in 1996. In addition to maintaining several retail stores and two e-commerce websites, the company has also formed successful partnerships with online mainstays Amazon.com and eBay.com.
For more information, please visit http://www.halfpricecomputerbooks.com.
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