Questionnaire

Welcome !
This questionnaire is meant for a group of approached companies from Pakistan. It aims to compare selection criteria of open source database server software, specifically MySQL against the selection criteria of proprietary database server software in Pakistan. The results will be used for my Master's thesis at Hanken, the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki, Finland.

The ultimate aim is to look at the relevance of Free and Open Source Software FOSS for the developing countries like Pakistan.

If you have any queries, please email me at sohail dot khan (at) hanken dot fi.

Section 1

	Please answer the following questions.
1.1	Name of company:
1.2	Name of person:
1.3	Title of post:
1.4	Company URL:
1.5	Industry: Banking & Finance IT & Communication Manufacturing Consumer Goods Other
1.6	Intensity of IT in company (Importance of IT in developing products, services) High Low
1.7	Number of employees: 1 - 20 20 - 50 50 - 100 more then 100
1.8	Please select which Database Software server is in use in your company. Mysql PostgreSQL Oracle DB2 Microsoft SQL Other

Section 2

2	Please inform how important each of the following criteria was on average for your decision in favor of Open source or proprietary database product.
2.1	Total Cost of Ownership very important important neutral less important not important
2.2	Performance very important important neutral less important not important
2.3	Reliability very important important neutral less important not important
2.4	Scalability very important important neutral less important not important
2.5	Security very important important neutral less important not important
2.6	Platforms very important important neutral less important not important
2.7	Standards very important important neutral less important not important
2.8	Management very important important neutral less important not important
2.9	Support very important important neutral less important not important
2.10	Maturity very important important neutral less important not important
2.11	Expertise very important important neutral less important not important
2.12	References very important important neutral less important not important

Section 3

3	Please inform how important each of the following criteria was on average for your decision in favor of Open source or proprietary database product.
3.1	Total Cost of Ownership
3.1a	Initial licensing cost very important important neutral less important not important
3.1b	Hardware expenditure    (Hardware cost is defined as cost of equipment) very important important neutral less important not important
3.1c	Administration, engineering and support costs    (Cost of deploying, developing, maintaining and supporting databases) very important important neutral less important not important
3.1d	System downtime cost    (Loss of productivity and revenue during the time server is down) very important important neutral less important not important
3.1e	Training cost    (Cost of hiring and training people to support database) very important important neutral less important not important

3.2	Performance
3.2a	Speed very important important neutral less important not important
3.2b	Independent benchmarks on comparable hardware and load very important important neutral less important not important

3.3	Reliability
3.3a	Server and application uptime very important important neutral less important not important
3.3b	Test of code quality very important important neutral less important not important
3.3c	Responsiveness to bug reports    (How fast are bugs fixed when discovered and reported) very important important neutral less important not important

3.4	Scalability
3.4a	Ability to scale out more servers as necessary    (Add & configure more servers, expand capacity) very important important neutral less important not important
3.4b	Independent benchmarks    (By experienced database benchmarking organization that is not tied to any hardware or software vendor) very important important neutral less important not important

3.5	Security
3.5a	No or low number of known vulnerabilities very important important neutral less important not important
3.5b	Independent validation of security    (Validation of security by third party) very important important neutral less important not important

3.6	Platforms
3.6a	For which platforms is the database available    (Server operating system: Windows, Linux, Solaris etc) very important important neutral less important not important
3.6b	Multi-language support    (English, Urdu etc) very important important neutral less important not important

3.7	Standards
3.7a	Support industry standards very important important neutral less important not important
3.7b	Interoperability with other software or systems    (Integrated access to the web, internal networks, and corporate mainframes) very important important neutral less important not importants
3.7c	No vendor/platform lock-in    (Process by which vendors try to coerce a customer into continued use of a software by making it impossible or difficult to migrate to a different solution) very important important neutral less important not important

3.8	Management
3.8a	Ease of management    (Availablity of tools to efficiently manage by database administrator) very important important neutral less important not important
3.8b	Ability to manage more servers    (Management of additional servers with minimum resources i.e hardware, staff, space etc) very important important neutral less important not important

3.9	Support
3.9a	Standard support very important important neutral less important not important
3.9b	Advanced support programs very important important neutral less important not important
3.9c	24x7x365 support    (7x24x365 means that you can get assistance no matter what time it is) very important important neutral less important not important
3.9d	Worldwide support very important important neutral less important not important
3.9e	Training very important important neutral less important not important
3.9f	Consulting very important important neutral less important not important
3.9g	3rd-party products and services very important important neutral less important not important

3.10	Maturity
3.10a	Maturity of product    (The software has gone through a cycle of development resulting in wider use) very important important neutral less important not important
3.10b	Reliability of current version very important important neutral less important not important
3.10c	Frequency of updates    (How many upgrades have been made, and how often) very important important neutral less important not important
3.10d	Ease of installation very important important neutral less important not important
3.10e	Good documentation very important important neutral less important not important
3.10f	Best practices information available very important important neutral less important not important
3.10g	Original developers still involved and committed very important important neutral less important not important
3.10h	Strength of company behind the product very important important neutral less important not important
3.10i	Large community of users very important important neutral less important not important
3.10j	Certification available very important important neutral less important not important
3.10k	User conferences very important important neutral less important not important

3.11	Expertise
3.11a	Availability of experts    (Especially in the host country, Pakistan) very important important neutral less important not important
3.11b	Books and reference material very important important neutral less important not important
3.11c	Certified trainers    (Does vendor have the certified staff to adequately train users) very important important neutral less important not important
3.11d	Certified consultants very important important neutral less important not important

3.12	References
3.12a	References to talk to, preferably in your industry    (Recommended by others who have been using the software) very important important neutral less important not important
3.12b	Experience on performance, reliability, scalability very important important neutral less important not important
3.12c	Best practices available very important important neutral less important not important
3.12d	Good experience with support very important important neutral less important not important

Section 4

4	Additional Comments (optional)