Thanks for the response and clarification, steve. -Ryan
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 7:35 PM, steve <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Very simply If at this point in the delivery of freerunner I have to > answer every posting about the next product, then > > the current product will not ship and the next will not ship. So I'm > trying to structure a public dialog on the future product, > > in the future. On the other hand, I could of course stop everything I am > doing on shipping freerunner and have nice long > > debates with everybody about what we should ship a year from now. Not > going to do it So, I wanted to explain to him, > > I'm not ignoring his questions and explain a bit of the marketing > background, basically personal stuff like what his > > experiences were and what my history was so we could communicate better. I > don't like to thump my chest > > in public so I thought it better to share with him in private. Sorry that > you took it the way you did. > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Ryan Prior > *Sent:* Sunday, April 27, 2008 4:46 PM > *To:* List for Openmoko community discussion > *Subject:* Re: Engineering Driven vs. Community Driven (was Re: Ugliness) > > > > A synopsis: > > Lowell: "Let's make this project community-driven." > Steve: "Please talk to me about it privately." > > WTF? > > On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 2:48 PM, steve <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Lowell, > > > > You can send me a personal mail and I will address your concerns. > > You are a valuable asset in the community and I value your opinion. > > Then you can feed that back to people, agreeing or disagreeing as you see > fit. > > > > I'd rather take this offline with you, since the main focus here and now > is how to get the product that > > is actually built into people's hands. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Lowell Higley > *Sent:* Sunday, April 27, 2008 10:16 AM > *To:* List for Openmoko community discussion > *Subject:* Engineering Driven vs. Community Driven (was Re: Ugliness) > > > > On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Lowell Higley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 5:58 AM, Stroller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > >So please don't be offended but saying "I don't like it and neither do my > friends" is totally irrelevant - come back when you've interviewed a hundred > different people and >they've scored the Freerunner (alongside several other > phones) in a range of 1 - 10 on size, colour, design attractiveness, > comfort-to-hold and so on. You need to establish >with each respondent why > they chose their last phone - was price a factor? features? You can probably > rule out everyone who got their phone "free" from their mobile >supplier, > because the Freerunner's market is those who are prepared to pay a premium > for the features they want in a phone. Now interview another 100 people, > those who >are prepared to pay a premium for the features they want in a > smart- or business-phone - do they find the Freerunner attractive or ugly? > Do they care? > > I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with you so I'll just dump my thoughts > and you decide.. > > I have spent the majority of my adult life in hi-tech, and much of that in > product marketing. My specialty has been taking "engineering driven" > projects and turning them into actual market driven products. I have come > into multi-million dollar projects and bet the engineering team a month's > salary that they would sell less than "x" products. Why? Because they had > NO clue what the customers wanted. They just built what THEY wanted. Each > time I made that bet, I won. No, I never collected the money but my point > was made. > > When I see a product I like and it doesn't seem to have "marketing polish" > I do a little informal research. I ask various people what they think. > These people aren't my friends. Ok, some of them are but not many. No, it > isn't a full focus group but I have learned over the years as a professional > marketer than I can get a pretty good idea of how a product would sell based > on the feedback I get from my little research projects. Just informal chats > with people on their likes and dislikes. There was a statement someone made > earlier about us techie types forcing complex phones with unwanted features > down people's throats. VERY true statement. Unfortunately, the FreeRunner > Consumer Edition will have to fight products like the iPhone head to head. > Consumers see the "bling" of the iPhone and have very high expectations, all > based on cosmetcis and the "wow" factor. To make matters even worse, if you > can't get the FCE (FreeRunner Consumer Edition) into the phone shops > (Orange, TMobile, etc.) it will never sell big numbers. In Europe I think > there is a better chance of that happening. In the US, the carriers LOVE > their closed, crippled phones. The deck is stacked against Openmoko ever > making inroads as a major Treo, Blackberry or iPhone alternative. Maybe > this niche market it perfect for them? > > To me, FreeRunner has the smell of being an engineering driven project. > Shawn has put a lot of effort in making it marketing driven but I don't see > the conclusive results. (Forgive me Shawn) I do acknowledge at this point > that we are NOT targeting consumers. That's ok. But if we all want this > product to REALLY succeed, we have to at some point. Who knows, perhaps > Shawn has a business case that involves just the niche market of hobbiests > and developers such as ourselves. At one point I asked on this list how the > design was derived. I received no response from the core team but did get a > heresay response that a company approached FIC to make a prototype, which > they did. That company then decided not to go forward, Shawn got a hold of > the prototype and Openmoko was born. If that story is true, I don't see any > overt marketing involved there on FIC's part. > > Marketing is much more than holding focus groups and creating sales copy. > There is competitive analysis, business cases, marketing requirements, > "negotiating" with engineering over the final product, schedule.. and the > list goes on. My point is, as I look at things and put the picture > together, I see no strong marketing presence in the FreeRunner. Where's the > MRD? Where's the focus group? Where's the business case? I'm not saying > this to throw dirt on the Openmoko project, just to point out that there is > a LOT of work involved on the part of marketing. Most of it we never see > and perhaps we shouldn't. > > Let's look at this another way.. I have spent most of my professional life > in Silicon Valley... Home of Apple, Netscape, Google, and Yahoo, Between > 1998 and 2001, I received invites almost weekly to interview with some new > startup. Sometimes I would accept and go talk to them. In two years, I > probably interviewed with 15 companies. I would always insist on talking > with the Director of Engineering (or whatever his title was) prior to > talking offer, etc. I would always ask the same question. "Why do you want > to hire a Marketing Manager?" The first 14 companies responded with > something like "Because our venture funding says we have to." If I pressed > the issue it would come out that they thought they had the best product and > technology and it would sell itself. No marketing required. Silicon Valley > is littered with the remains of companies like that. We won't talk about > company 15 because I did go work for them and the did pretty well. :) > > My last statement. Openmoko and FreeRunner is REALLY cool stuff.... but > it's not going to sell itself. Ok, I'm late to my LUG meeting. I'll get off > my soapbox now. > > Lowell > > > > So I woke this morning thinking about this.. Yes, I am a sick man. First, > I realized I made a mistake.. I spelled Sean's name wrong. Oops. My > apologies. > > Second, I was thinking about "engineering driven" vs. "community driven". > My impressions thus far is that Openmoko is engineering driven. That is a > bunch of techie types sitting around and deciding what the product should > be. The decisions usually made in an engineering vacuum. Openmoko is an > open project. So a lot of the traditional aspects of defining, developing, > and releasing a product may not apply in the traditional sense. They should > still apply, but definitely in a much different aspect. I think sometimes > that is what I have troubles wrapping my mind around. It makes sense that > it would come across engineering driven as most people that are involved in > the community have a technical background. So for that epiphany, I > apologize for some of my earlier, possibly strongly worded statements. > > So I spent some time in the wiki and noticed the new main page was > implemented. Right on that page is an "Openmoko Roadmap" link which is > blank with the exception of the telephony piece which is also skimpy on > content. So I guess my thoughts transitioned to this morning was how does > the community take these traditional roles of defining product requirements, > creating a development specifications, schedule, etc. From that I had > several core questions rattling around in the back of my head. I've stated > a few of those questions below and referenced items that I found in the > wiki... > > 1) What is the ultimate goal of Openmoko? > > >From the wiki: > *Openmoko is an attempt to create the world's first completely open mobile > phone software stack.* > > Is this the ultimate goal? Dunno but it seems like an admirable goal.. > just a little short on details. Here's something else I found (keyword > search: goal) > > *The long term goal is that phone software won't be tied to any particular > phone. You can install any OpenMoko software over the whole range of phones, > and if you upgrade your phone, you don't lose the software. Bugs fixed on > one phone are fixed on all.* > > Again, admirable goal. But is this the overarching goal of Openmoko > project? I think the above statement is a little out of context but the > best I could find to answer my question. > > > 2) Is there commercialization plans for Openmoko products? That is, will > there be an attempt to put it in consumers' hands? > > >From the wiki: > > *OpenMoko, while being an open-source project, cannot flourish and become > a major milestone in human history without advanced commercialization > planning. Without an attractive market potential there will be little > interest for companies to invest resources (funding, production capacity, > ISV community) to make OpenMoko a true advanced mobile computing platform. > This section is devoted to the discussion of business-related applications > of OpenMoko for the purpose of attracting more resources into the > development of OpenMoko.* > > [edit<http://wiki.openmoko.org/index.php?title=Business_Development&action=edit§ion=1> > ] > > The way I read this is we (the community as well as Openmoko, Inc) want to > get this device into consumer hands. We have a lot to do to get there and > very little time to do it. Time to market is crucial and I think we've > already missed the best window. > > > 3) Is there a roadmap? > > As discussed above, there is a prominent Roadmap link from the new wiki > main page. In fact, it is the second link of the first contrasted table (the > dark colored ones). But you drill down and pretty much everything is > blank. The Telephony team put some good tidbits in there but the details > (schedule, for example) are still missing. > > > 4) Who defines the roadmap and how? > > I really couldn't find much in the wiki about this. It looks like the > limited roadmap I did find was created by the Openmoko, Inc. team, probably > with input from the community. Are the wish lists that are contained in > the wiki how we get our requirements to the Openmoko team for inclusion into > the product/roadmap? > > > Well, I think I beat the horse a little too much. My personal thought is > the community needs to take some responsibility and initiative to do some of > these things a typical corporate marketing team would do. I think a lot of > us, myself included, thought that the Openmoko, Inc guys were taking care > most of these tasks. Maybe they are but if we really want this to be a > community driven project and our ultimate goal is to get this product to > consumers, we need to step up to the plate. We need to do focus groups, > competitive analysis, requirements definition, etc. I think this would be a > lot more productive than people like myself stating "no one is going to buy, > it's ugly." Let's organize, gather the needed information and let's get > this product to the consumers. I'm tired of sounding whiny and putting > forth no solutions. Let's truly make this community driven. > > If I am stepping on someone's toes, please let me know. Tell me to sit > down and shut up and I will. I am willing to help anyway I can. I'd love > to hear other people's thoughts. Ok, I'm off to Europe for the week so I > need to do some laundry/packing. Cheers! > > Regards, > Lowell > > > > _______________________________________________ > Openmoko community mailing list > community@lists.openmoko.org > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community > > > > _______________________________________________ > Openmoko community mailing list > community@lists.openmoko.org > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community > >
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