Graham Lauder a écrit :
On Friday 01 Oct 2010 02:04:26 Marc Paré wrote:
Le 2010-09-30 07:21, Graham Lauder a écrit :
A group of the marketing and communication peoples got together to get
our heads around Vision and Mission Statement. Everyone brainstormed
what they saw as the core values of Mageia to give a direction that the
Projects Vision and mission statement could head.
The reasoning behind this is it points a figurative arrow at our primary
target market and thus gives us a guide toward where our branding should
be aimed.
A mistake that is often made is branding from an internal aesthetic when
in fact branding should be more aimed externally to attract a new
demographic. If the gods are in alignment then ideally it should point
toward our principle point of difference and again this influences our
branding choices in terms of Colour Pallet Logo and so forth.
The "feel" to me that came from the brainstorming was that Mageia could
be marketed as the "Family Distro". This being a principle point of
difference when a user makes a decision as to what operating system to
run.
Our principle competitor, MS competes against the Linux universe as a
whole but other distros compete for the MS user base aimed at particular
Demographics. For instance:
OpenSUSE aims at the "Power User" Market
Ubuntu aims at the young individual end of the market
CentOS at Community enterprise and Not For Profits
Fedora at the Computing Professional
Mageia could therefore aim at the Young Married professional market,
being the Distro that could be installed on the home computer and geared
so that the whole family could use it.
This seems to be an excellent target market. The relative ease-of-use
of Mandriva should have been targeted here. In the past, without
realising it, I've targeted such users myself for Mandriva. And Mageia
has the advantage of not being tied to a commercial market.
So for instance as well as the standard software, educational programmes
would be installed by default, be NetSafe (Dans Guardian), have OOo4Kids
installed as well as a full office suite, Tuxtype, TuxPaint and so on.
Such applications don't have to be installed by default. They just have
to be available on the installation DVD, with a selectable Educational
group of applications, much like the Internet and Server groups
available on existing Mandriva DVD's. It could even be called "Young
Family".
Note that in the past (at least about 10 years ago), RedHat CD's had
many selectable installation groups, many of which overlapped. So using
this approach, there could be groups called "Educational", "Young
Family", and "Home Office", for example, all containing the
go-openoffice office suite, among other applications.
I believe that the current Mandriva DVD doesn't have any overlap between
installation groups.
Documentation added to show parents how to set up accounts for the kids
and how to make it Net safe.
I think that this is an untapped market right now and something that the
project could leverage into a marketing campaign and guide us in terms of
branding.
Comments?
I think you are right on the mark.
Cheers
GL
I think that if you target the software packages that are compatible
with Educational software advocated by educational organizations, we
could make quite large inroads in the adaptability of Mageia.For
example, when marketing the OS, emphasis on the distro that can carry
your kids through their educational paths with such packages as
OpenOffice (soon to be LibreOffice -- make sure the MSWorks plug-in is
also included) compatible with MSOffice; GIMP similar to Photoshop and
some plugins are compatible; Freemind mindmapping; etc. If Mageia
concentrated on making these software packages work solidly then you
could have a good run at competing with other linux distros in the
educational field.
Indeed, that's why I suggest OOo4Kids. The go-oo.org version is pretty much
essential right now because of it's GoogleDocs/Zoho integration. Schools are
using the cloud as an educational tool more and more.
BTW, in Canada, many school boards still use the Novel Netware setups
and they are just now in the midst of planning out its replacement. My
school board for example will have to replace close to 10,000 units if
they were to move to a Linux setup. I sat in on a meeting about 5 years
ago to hear out a RehHat re-seller's pitch. Most school boards are
almost at the break point and will be actively looking for new
networking/desktop solutions.
Mageia to the rescue :)
Common all over the world and if the school can see that the software used at
school is as friendly on the home computer...
The big plus : no extra cost for exactly what is used at school.
So, compatibility with educational software. The distro should also be
an easy install for everyone and GUI run. If we are going to make it and
contend with other distros, the majority of users want a GUI run install
where everything works right away. There should be as little fiddling
around as possible. Install (15-20 minutes), then, register user
accounts, shares for accounts, re-name the computer to instill a sense
of ownership to the user (rather than having your computer called
"localhost" all the time, and then you are done! (Cups and 3d should be
installed automatically during the install phase). Make the install as
easy as possible.
15-20 minutes is probably a bit short; realistically Microsoft takes an
hour to install.
In the current Mandriva, during installation one can do all that.
However, what is needed is a friendlier GUI, and much better help/info
along the way.
(For help/info on install, Ubuntu is much better than Mandriva. But
please, Ubuntu's ugly brown theme is depressing.)
Cups is installed by default if there is a printer connected.
3D should probably be an option, as it requires a lot of horsepower. On
a netbook, for example, it would be extremely slow. Currently, 3D
doesn't work properly under Linux on certain brands of computers, like
Toshiba.
And most games for young children wouldn't use it anyway.
(Really useful for the teenage and young adult gamer market, though.
But they'll probably have their own computer.)
Easy to install is indeed an important point.
When I started using Linux (Mandrake was my first distro and the reason I
abandoned Windows) MCC to me, a nongeek, was the killer app. OpenSuSE's Yast
is/was the only real competition. The ability to administer everything from a
GUI is killer for the Ex-windows user.
MCC is part of the reason why I originally switched to Mandriva from RedHat.
Actually I like the fact that more info is available under Linux.
The next is a distro with games and solid multi-player game setups that
work. Get the distro to play nice with WOW and other popular games. This
will kill the competition and grab kids attention. Have a Mageia games
advocate(s) who periodically send out "snazzy" e-newsletters and a
"Magei Games Korner" on the website to foster gamesmanship on the
distro. Get the kids talking about the "rock-solid" install of WOW (for
example) using Wine -- the distro should come "hard wired" to play! and
rock!
That would be a big plus going after the teenage game market. M$ seems
to own it now.
That could evolve from a focus on the family market. The fact that
Linux natively networks is a plus.
The critical thing about aiming at a family market is that you are not aiming
at Kids. The target in this market is Mum, she is the power here, the rest of
the family follow along meekly.
Or enthusiastically, if Mageia is packaged right. True.
Have a great advocacy group that will stand up to Mageia bashing and
hand out comparative studies on the distro's performance and keep the
name in the headlines with such sites as LinuxToday.com. Be proactive
rather reactive to Linux possibilities of use where it can rationalized
as a good replacement desktop distro.
Sound a bit like M$ "studies" that prove that black is white. But if it
works ...
Didn't Mandriva promote itself as the desktop distro a while back ?
Reminds me that a company that does commercial support for Linux here in
Canada recently won a lawsuit against the Québec (provincial) govt for
considering only a Microsoft solution. So next time they have to take
Linux into consideration.
What we have to do is replace the Linux=Ubuntu with Mageia instead of Windows.
Linux has already been sold to those who fill the market that needs to know
about that, let Ubuntu have that space. What I would like to see is a
decision making process that goes Windows or Mac or Mageia.
One way to combat Linux=Ubuntu is to have "Linux" in our logo.
Cheers
Marc
Cheers
GL
- André (andre999)
