FossAlliance is born: More than expertise, better than a network

In the midst of the announcements and the media storm surrounding the Document Foundation, I forgot to elaborate on a quite different type of news : The birth of FossAlliance. What’s FossAlliance ?
FossAlliance is a strategic partnership between several consultancies and practitioners in the fields of Free & Open Source Software and Open Standards. This alliance allows each of our customers to benefit from the range of expertise of the entire network, and not just the one from one company.
For instance, Ars Aperta will now be able to make a packaged offer involving expertise it does not have, such as legal expertise and agile projects managements. The whole offer is also packaged and sold through one company, allowing customers to deal with only one supplier.
FossAlliance has also been created at a time when the global business volume and demand for non-technical, but upstream and strategic expertise is felt by each of us. The opportunity however, sometimes tends to be overshadowed by competitors with a different size and position : International legal firms with hundreds of lawyers, for instance, or players of various sizes but with enough market traction to capture many potential customers.
In this regard, it felt like it was the right time to gather not just anyone under the FossAlliance banner, but among the most talented experts in the field of Free and Open Source Software : Simon Phipps, Carlo Piana, Shane Martin Coughan, the Ars Aperta team, Ayeba, and now Dave Neary are part of FossAlliance (we’re expanding to new members as well). Together we firmly believe we have one of the most compelling expertise to offer on the market, if not the most compelling one : More than expertise, better than a network.