

Ask HN: Will my target audience reject a .net solution? - jme

I'm building an application whose target audience will be small-to-medium web application companies (software-as-a-service companies).<p>Because I am developing this solution myself, I'm planning to use something I know well, which in this case is ASP.NET (possibly ASP.NET MVC). I've tried numerous times to devote the time and energy required to learn RoR or Django, but I just don't have the time to reach a level of proficiency that I feel is necessary to support a commercial product. So, I'm thinking that I'd rather lose a little credibility with my audience and be able to sleep at night knowing that I can fix any issues that might arise. On the hand, I am worried that an ASP.NET solution might cause too many of my target audience to turn their noses up and reject the app on that basis alone. Maybe I shouldn't worry about that because I may not want those types of customers anyway?<p>Then again, Stack Overflow was written in ASP.NET MVC and has been well-received. But one could argue that it was largely based on the credibility and reputation of the founders and wouldn't have mattered what is was written in.<p>Thoughts?
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profquail
I think that customers are going to focus on the "fit and finish" of your
product, not what platform it's running on. If you write it in ASP.NET, most
Microsoft-based businesses will be able to run it, as well as any non-
Microsoft-based businesses that use Mono.

Just make sure to test your app on both Windows Server and a couple of flavors
of Linux/Mono, and each of those combined with the major database vendors
(MSSQL, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSql). If it works well with all of those "out of
the box", I think you'll have a lot of happy customers.

~~~
jme
I failed to mention that my application will also be delivered as a service,
not installed on my customer's systems.

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SwellJoe
I don't think it will be dramatically more likely than losing customers
because you've written it in a language other than .net and the shop is all-
Windows (which is a pretty high percentage of small/medium businesses, as they
haven't yet reached the point where the cost of Windows server solutions
becomes a _big_ number).

We occasionally lose customers because we don't have a Windows version, and
our products are smack dab in the middle of Linux' stronghold (web servers for
shared hosting).

I do think it worth noting that Fog Creek builds their apps in a meta-language
that compiles to PHP and .net, for this very reason. Given that they are
historically a heavily Windows software oriented shop, I think it's worth
considering why they would go to so much trouble, and do something so batshit
crazy as to write a whole new language, just so they could reach those non-
Windows deployments.

In other words, I don't know. Launch with what you know and what you can build
quickly. When you have customers, and are talking to new customers, you'll
find out quickly whether you made the wrong decision...and it will be in time
for a course correction. Rewriting in a new language three months in is a 1-2
month job. It'd be a setback, but not crippling...and getting started right
away is better than letting analysis paralysis set in.

~~~
CyberFonic
A meta-language approach is great for increased portability, but also requires
a larger up-front effort than a single platform solution. You would need to
need to define your meta-language, build the code generators and test. As you
develop the application you will most likely need to evolve your meta-language
toolset. Testing will also require that you test for each of the targeted
environments. It's a significant increase in investment in order to capture
incremental market share. I have no idea what Fog Creek's ROI is on their
meta-language compared to the .Net only projects.

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mgorsuch
The company that I work for and those that I have worked for in the past would
never reject an application because it was written in .NET. We would only
reject an application that did not fit our needs.

I think you are right to stick with what you know.

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dbrush
I've found that a lot less people care what you develop something with than
whether what you developed is something they want to use.

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CyberFonic
You can't please all the people all the time. Regardless of what platform you
choose there always will be those who as "Why didn't you write it for Blub?"
Delivering a top notch application to large market segment has a far greater
potential to succeed than a lesser app to a different, possibly smaller,
segment.

Your business success will come from how well you support the product and how
well you respond to market feedback and implement features that are in demand.
You are more likely to accomplish that goal with what you know well and are
comfortable with.

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cheriot
Two thoughts:

1) The money they spend on a windows server to run your application on is
money out of your pocket.

2) If you will support plugins like wordpress, trac, etc, you'll have an
easier time creating a plugin ecosystem with open source tools.

Then again, I'm biased since I work in a linux/java/ruby shop.

I'm assuming that you plan to have your customers install the application. If
your target customers are the makers of software as a service, why not sell
them your software as a service?

~~~
jme
I failed to mention that my application will also be delivered as a service,
not installed on my customer's systems.

