On Sat, Mar 29, 2003 at 01:33:30PM -0800, Wayne Hardy wrote: > Fabor, > > Are you going to be at the next HAMLUG meeting?
You guys meet south of Princeton on Wednesday nights, right? I'm up in Bloomfield until 6 PM on Wednesdays until May. > You said "That IS what you do for a living", what is > it exactly that you do? I'm a consultant that specializes in Linux and FOSS. Check out my website (www.linuxnj.com) for more info. > On the marketing side, if we limit ourselves to Linux > and open source we limit out market. Much of the > support that is needed is integration of various > technologies including windows. Yes, managers have MS > blinders but Linux folk have Linux blinders. So let me see, if I need help with getting my WinPrinter working with my windows XP and 2000 network, I would go looking for help at the local Linux User Group? > If we are going to market professional services we > should move beyond the bias and address customer's > needs with a larger perspective. What is the goal here? To provide technical computer support or to promote Linux and FOSS? I'm not saying that FOSS is suitable for all occasions, but that should be our push. If you want to start a computer company, great. Go for it. There are dozens of companies that you can model. I, OTOH, want to help small businesses use FOSS where possible. > With regard to open source solutions - it's great work > if you can find it. Or make it! > And it's great if customers will > allow you to implement an open source solution. But what if they don't know that there are FOSS solutions? Of course everyone uses MS Office, because there's no viable alternative, right? And my employee who simply answers emails and telephones all day simply *must* have Windows XP with all the bells and whistles to do her job, right? And of course, if you need a web site, you go with the market leader Microsoft, right? Part of out job is to educate, to show that there are alternatives to proprietary software. Is there a FOSS solution to every problem? No, that's why we shouldn't push a FOSS solution to every problem. > Anyway, marketing and business organization is still > the key. Any ideas? First, figure out what kind of business you want to be. Who is your market? It sounds like you want to be a more-or-less traditional computer company. How do they do they're marketing? Are you aiming for the consumer or the business market? That will tell you how you're going to advertise. -- Regards, Faber Linux New Jersey: Open Source Solutions for New Jersey http://www.linuxnj.com
