With these great ideas comes challenges, and roadblocks. As Shane detailed and as I hinted above, software firms have a two common problem: '''''How does one expose a software product in a highly fragmented market stuffed with competition, when one has low financial backing?''''' and '''''Would open source, better our product?'''''

ActiveState resolved problem one by with an attempted fix to resolve this issue by implementing strategic marketing, which fundamentally increased their user base but neglected to obtain a dominance in a niche area. This fixed the first problem but the second remained. The solution was to open source the product alongside an extended feature retail release. As a result, their user base greatly increased; those unwilling to pay for a product now were able to use the product and contribute, and ActiveState could explore new business models. A firm like ActiveState embraced many fears prior to open sourcing Komodo, such as:* Would the free version collapse sales on other Komodo IDE products?* Could they build a community from scratch and leverage that community, and if they built it would they actually come?