Great forum by the way, you all sound very knowledgable
First thing's first, I'm not a Developer, I'm one of those guys who normally hires you lot...The dreaded Venture Captialist....
Right, I've been approached by a production company, who have a great idea (that's not in question), however, they plan to execute their idea with a turn-key PHP solution...I have one or two issues with this, as I will undoubtedly be Invseting in the concept in order to make a return, 'Scum'! I hear you all cry...This may be true, but we can deal with that on another thread!
The service (if I can call it that) is of a slightly adult nature, utilising pay-per-view streaming technology...You may be thinking: 'That's nothing new'...You're right, but the company in question has put a nice twist on it, which I think presents a viable opportunity for both me and them.
Here's the problem I've got:
The business strategy will be built for trade sale (selling the company on after three years). The best software we can find is:
a/ Not 100% open source
b/ We will never physically own it...It will be installed by the third party supplier at server level
c/ The knowledge base and labour force is in Romania
This is where the parnoid comes out in me...And here's my questions:
Have any of you had experience of selling a business or website, that was based on a turn-key solution, and have you had any disputes over ownership?
Seeing as we will not own the source and will have to trust our supplier to install and access our server, how likely do you think it is that they've left a 'back door'
In your experience, do you think that owning the source code to your production adds sognificant value to your business even if there are turn-key alternatives on the market?
Thanks for any help that you are able to give, it will be much appreciated.
Kind regards
Mark