On 18/06/2020 11:25, Italo Vignoli wrote: > The draft presentation is available online on TDF Nextcloud: > https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/jzryGw7XDkJadmo
Many thanks for putting this together and sharing it, Italo. It's a exciting document and opportunity for 7.0 and there are many new and interesting ideas contained. ## Summary of comments: - For the purposes of this plan we should compare LO to gratis office suites, not only FOSS ones, in order to be realistic and competitive - The plan lacks details of market segmentation -- information about the targeted audiences and why they were chosen - In some parts the plan's scope is too wide in my view -- marketing can't solve all TDF's problems (eg community and vendor agreement issues) - The brand is about to be updated and redefined: I think we can afford to be more bold and expressive in the new names before they are finalised ## Comments slide by slide (actual, not printed, slide numbers used): Slide 18, 26: Only viable FOSS alternative to Microsoft Office - should compare ourselves to free suites not just foss. Business models have changed allowing free (beer) forever proprietary suites to be comprehensive competitors. Slide 19 and 20 lack title and clarity of purpose Is slide 22 about marketing? Sounds like community management not specific to marketing Slide 28: the best free office suite ever - free as in beer? This claim is too broad to be meaningful. For effective marketing we need to be specific about audiences - LO is not the best gratis office suite for some market segments. If we start off by assuming we are already or still the best for everyone then all marketing that follows will be misguided. Slide 29: why are these the most important segments? By userbase / community size / historical visibility / desirability? Slide 32: LibreOffice Engine: great initiative to communicate the family of products. I'm not a fan of "Engine" as it has unnecessarily technical connotations, however achieving consensus is hard to I'll refrain from further comment here. Slide 33: Separation like this should make marketing considerably easier. "LibreOffice Personal" could be more distinctive, inspiring, and reflective of LO's unique vision and history, however again I'll postpone further comment to prioritise consensus. Slide 36: .biz domains lack credibility in my view, even compared to some newer unknown domains. Personally I associate them with unscrupulous salesmen, probably because of how "biz" is often used as an abbreviation in american English. Consider alternatives like .pro, .enterprises, .services. I strongly support investment in building a community on LinkedIn -- this is an ideal place for showcasing the strength of the larger LO business community, both to encourage business users, and to attract technical talent to experiment and apply for jobs. Slide 40: no comments on the LOOL situation except to agree that a win-win seems highly achievable with some creative thinking, and also critical. Slide 44 and 47: "XXX announces XXX Mobile, based on the LibreOfficeEngine technology" -- how would this be enforced? For various commercial reasons it will be attractive to deviate from this for some companies in future (eg future entrants to the LO ecosystem). Is it desirable to legally enforce it? If it's not enforcable, is it worth adopting at all? Slide 52: "We could develop a specific program, backed by a specific certification, for these NGOs, to educate them about open source software" -- An agreement between LO vendors to offer consistently discounted prices to NGOs would simplify the marketing of these efforts and likely increase impact. However the strategic benefit of such a programme to the companies would need to be assessed, ideally by TDF, in my view. Slide 58: "which should bethe final marketing plan for the next five years" -- it's a huge win that we will have a plan like this going forward, and I recommend that it is updated at intervals within the 5 year time frame to keep it in line with market developments. Hope that helps, Sam.
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