Financing/Organization

The FRIEND project is organized into several bodies with different financing approaches.

The FRIEND core system (FRIEND SWIM & FRIEND ODBMS) will be developed by the association FRIEND-COI. FRIEND-COI will be financed mainly by the FRIEND foundation and sponsors. Surplus earnings will be added to the foundation.

FRIEND Partners can be any organization that implements software based on FRIEND and that would like to collaborate with FRIEND-COI. These organizations can, for example, be large companies with own in-house development departments or IT-SMEs that may provide product support or develop their own products or perform commissional work. For FRIEND Partners we see the established open-source business concept as main source of income. These include for example training, consulting or support contracts either for software that is based on FRIEND or for to assist other FRIEND partners in developing FRIEND products.

FRIEND Users are organizations or people that use FRIEND products.

Research Partners can be funded by FRIEND Foundation in order to support and maintain long-term innovation of the FRIEND project.

Financing Concept

FRIEND Platform

The development of FRIEND ODBMS and FRIEND SWIM is performed by FRIEND-COI on funding by the FRIEND Foundation and sponsoring contracts. The foundation capital comes from the following areas.

FRIEND Biotech

FRIEND Biotech will be developed by the FRIEND Partner SC-N. Development will be funded with support contracts, trainings, consulting and similar offerings.

FRIEND Partner – IT Engineering Businesses

One goal of the project is to create a community of partner companies that build on FRIEND to create products. In return they are expected to support the development of FRIEND.

Another important goal is using free open-source, also to promote joint cooperative development of software components in order to reduce development efforts. As primary business model we see funding of software development via support contracts, consulting, training, certifications, and similar established concepts. Commissional development work is also possible but it should only be considered as a secondary source of income. Swiss Consultant-Network GmbH is licensed to provide cross-boarder personnel leasing services, granted by the Swiss Eidgenossenschaft.

FRIEND Partner – Companies with in-house IT Development Departments

Large companies, for example from the pharmaceutical sector, with own IT development departments can use on FRIEND and the available extensions to build own in-house products. Even in this case we recommend using a free open-source concept, for example to facilitate exchange with research institutions.