Death of the software salesman?

Will the software salesperson role become extinct?

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This possibility was raised during a panel session at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon. Panelists from Apache, Eclipse, Intel and Google debated the topic of how to collaborate with open communities to build a business.

At one point, panelist Danese Cooper, open-source desktop strategist at Intel, said the software sales force at large needs mass re-education because it has been trained to sell by creating real or imagined advantages in customers' minds. Salespeople make leaps that do not exist, she said.

Some salespeople involved in companies with dual licensing, which involves free licensing in some circumstances and fee-based in others, have not been totally truthful about who qualifies for the free software, she said. Dual licensing is a popular business model for open-source ventures.

"The sales force is not trying to undermine the company's idea. [But] it's very hard to educate them," Cooper said.

Eclipse Foundation Executive Director Mike Milinkovich countered with the possibility of no salespeople. "I actually think over time we're going to be observing the death of the software salesman," Milinkovich said.

Sales and marketing account for about 40 percent of investments in software products, he said. If that amount could be cut in half and invested in research and development, software companies would have a much better chance of being innovative and having a distinct commercial advantage, Milinkovich said.

Panel moderator Susan Wu, Apache Software Foundation chief marketing director, said Oracle has a notoriously sales-driven culture but is in the process of buying open-source-related companies. Oracle this week bought Sleepycat Software  and is rumored to be thirsting for vendors such as JBoss  also. She asked how the dynamic would change with a company like Oracle acquiring open source property.