open letter by Andreas Ciroth, September 27, 2015
Dear colleagues,
Being Open Source and freely available, openLCA has since its beginning been the right solution to many people all over the world. Our community is constantly growing, with almost 10,000 downloads in the last year from all over the globe, especially since the release of the new and fast versions 1.4.x in summer last year. We are proud to say that openLCA is internationally recognised as professional software for life cycle and sustainability assessment and most of the openLCA users are from outside Germany. The map below gives an idea where openLCA users are located.
downloads from openLCA.org, in the last 365 days
Meanwhile, openLCA is a fully features LCA software fit for professional use, fastest for large LCA systems, offering best-in-class interoperability, with broadest support of import and export formats for example, the widest selection of LCA and sustainability databases, and with some unique features such as regionalized LCIA modelling.
We therefore think it is time to establish a network of competent and reliable partners to provide client support in relevant markets, regions, countries.
We envision the following “tasks” for these partners:
- providing training courses
- performing case studies with/for clients
- supporting clients with the new openLCA support contracts
- maintaining and providing the translation, for the software user interface and possibly also for documentation material
- …
— and simply also representing openLCA in a certain region or sector.
This idea is similar to software reseller networks, but somewhat different concerning the business. Since openLCA is and will remain an open source software, there are no direct license sales benefits. To our experiences, though, offering a free license for a transparent software with support and training is quite attractive to clients, it reduces the initial costs for openLCA, makes a migration towards openLCA easier, and it increases the budget available for e.g. training and other support.
⇒ if you feel this is interesting to you and your organisation, then please send us a short note explaining how you would see yourself as local openLCA partner:
- your background;
- your idea for a partnership (which region, businesses you have in mind, activities you would plan, etc.)
- what you expect from us
- any other ideas and comments.
Many thanks in advance. If you have any questions, please let us know.
We aim to have the first partners from this call established with the beginning of next year, therefore your reply by end of October 2015 is appreciated.
Many thanks again and best wishes,
Andreas