Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Selecting an Education based install (which could be used with other software selections is what I had in mind. This could be called the Education software group (for want of a better name). Like that you don't need a special Education version, it's the same DVD for everyone. Of course, the necessary education software has to be on the DVD. An excellent way to promote Mageia. In fact, using a common DVD, students could take a copy home, and install as well, the young family and/or home office software groups. (Which would necessarily overlap to some extent.) That would work nicely. There is really no need for separate CD's seeing that many of the software packages would be complementary from one type of install to the next. The only problem that I would see in doing such a promotion is that this type of usage would require a server/client solution. This is where the choice of server partnership would become important. RehHat and Suse are well-known servers options in the business world. We could then partner up with them and make sure that Mageia/RedHat or Mageia/Suse solutions are rock solid. Unless we seek a partnership with MandrivaLinux server, but in North American markets, Mandriva is really not a force to contend with and is not really known. Marc Since we're in Canada, Mageia/RedHat and Mageia/Suse make sense due to the greater North American presence, but Mandriva server is a major player in the European and South American markets. The advantage of using Mandriva server in Canada is English/French in the education system in every province. Like I've already said elsewhere, I'd like to see some accommodation with Mandriva for the commercial/server side. In any case, we could always offer a choice of servers. RedHat, Suse, and Mandriva all use compatible RPM packaging. André (andre999) Yes, so I guess if there were different options of installations it would be a good start. Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 3:11 PM, andré and...@laposte.net wrote: So far in simplified terms, for the education target, we have focus on school boards in US/Canada and Australia/New Zealand; focus on regional gov'ts in Germany. Do you have a link to any Mandriva docs that detail how the package lists for different targets can be created and implemented? -- Hoyt
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Wolfgang Bornath a écrit : 2010/10/3 Marc Parém...@marcpare.com: Le 2010-10-03 05:10, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit : Who said we do have an education problem? I am not sure, I certainly did not say that there was a problem. You seem to be comfortable enough with it, and I don't have a problem with that. LOL! No, I'm not comfortable with that! That sentencs was a poor attempt on being sarcastic! We DO have an education system problem, there is a drifference in education based on which state of Germany you went to school, there are students and parents demonstrating on the streets, there is a growing number of private schools (which were very rare in Germany only 20 years ago), only open for parents with money, etc. OMG, I get carried away on this topic That's good. Shows that you're mind is alive ! Maybe they just need a good dose of Mageia ;) - André (andre999)
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Hoyt Duff a écrit : On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 3:11 PM, andréand...@laposte.net wrote: So far in simplified terms, for the education target, we have focus on school boards in US/Canada and Australia/New Zealand; focus on regional gov'ts in Germany. Here I mean focus in terms of promotion, not in terms of the content of the DVD. Do you have a link to any Mandriva docs that detail how the package lists for different targets can be created and implemented? In short, it would be part of creating the installation DVD. Mandriva does not implement this function in a manner useful to our purposes. Let me explain. There would be a number of install groups, (for want of a better expression), all on the same DVD. Each group will have a list of packages to be installed, which could be individually selected/deselected as desired. This is similar to what is already available on a Mandriva install DVD, with an important difference : install groups would not be mutually exclusive. In other words, the education group (targeting school needs), the young family group (targeting families with young children), and the home office group, would probably all contain, for example, a version of OpenOffice (be it Go-oo, LibreOffice, or the officiel OpenOffice from Oracle/Sun). Currently, on a Mandriva installation DVD, each application is in only one group.(Server being one of their groups.) Overlapping installation groups allows us to target many uses on the same DVD. We could consider a target as a usage focus. Many users would have more than one focus -- for example, developers would want various development tools, as well as maybe home office if they are an independant consultant. There also could be a multi-level tree. A global group for developers, with a sub-group for packagers (RPM tools), another for C/C++, another for Perl, etc. Or for a potentially more common theme, a global group for education, with sub-groups for pre-school/kindergarten, elementary, secondary, post-secondary. And these various subgroups would almost necessarily have overlaps. The possibilities are only limited by our collective imaginations. The more I think of this, I see an advantage of allowing the DVD installer to access an external group file, (on a usb memory key for example), for more flexibility on installation. Especially useful to install the same software selection on a large number of computers -- without creating a custom installation DVD. Think of the potential :) - André (andre999)
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
My purposes for my computer is primarily for home office purposes with the occasional gaming. I would say that would be the typical target audience. Do you remember, years ago, how Mandriva had a kind of store where you could buy software, a one click installation system. Would it be possible to do custom installation through a kind of web-based gui to keep it simple for those first starting off with Linux. I'm thinking, something like the App Store that Apple uses. It could be free or some things could be for cost... just a thought. -Nathan On Wednesday, 06 October 2010 17:27:20 andré wrote: Hoyt Duff a écrit : On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 3:11 PM, andréand...@laposte.net wrote: So far in simplified terms, for the education target, we have focus on school boards in US/Canada and Australia/New Zealand; focus on regional gov'ts in Germany. Here I mean focus in terms of promotion, not in terms of the content of the DVD. Do you have a link to any Mandriva docs that detail how the package lists for different targets can be created and implemented? In short, it would be part of creating the installation DVD. Mandriva does not implement this function in a manner useful to our purposes. Let me explain. There would be a number of install groups, (for want of a better expression), all on the same DVD. Each group will have a list of packages to be installed, which could be individually selected/deselected as desired. This is similar to what is already available on a Mandriva install DVD, with an important difference : install groups would not be mutually exclusive. In other words, the education group (targeting school needs), the young family group (targeting families with young children), and the home office group, would probably all contain, for example, a version of OpenOffice (be it Go-oo, LibreOffice, or the officiel OpenOffice from Oracle/Sun). Currently, on a Mandriva installation DVD, each application is in only one group.(Server being one of their groups.) Overlapping installation groups allows us to target many uses on the same DVD. We could consider a target as a usage focus. Many users would have more than one focus -- for example, developers would want various development tools, as well as maybe home office if they are an independant consultant. There also could be a multi-level tree. A global group for developers, with a sub-group for packagers (RPM tools), another for C/C++, another for Perl, etc. Or for a potentially more common theme, a global group for education, with sub-groups for pre-school/kindergarten, elementary, secondary, post-secondary. And these various subgroups would almost necessarily have overlaps. The possibilities are only limited by our collective imaginations. The more I think of this, I see an advantage of allowing the DVD installer to access an external group file, (on a usb memory key for example), for more flexibility on installation. Especially useful to install the same software selection on a large number of computers -- without creating a custom installation DVD. Think of the potential :) - André (andre999)
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Le 2010-10-06 17:27, andré a écrit : Hoyt Duff a écrit : On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 3:11 PM, andréand...@laposte.net wrote: So far in simplified terms, for the education target, we have focus on school boards in US/Canada and Australia/New Zealand; focus on regional gov'ts in Germany. Here I mean focus in terms of promotion, not in terms of the content of the DVD. Do you have a link to any Mandriva docs that detail how the package lists for different targets can be created and implemented? In short, it would be part of creating the installation DVD. Mandriva does not implement this function in a manner useful to our purposes. Let me explain. There would be a number of install groups, (for want of a better expression), all on the same DVD. Each group will have a list of packages to be installed, which could be individually selected/deselected as desired. This is similar to what is already available on a Mandriva install DVD, with an important difference : install groups would not be mutually exclusive. In other words, the education group (targeting school needs), the young family group (targeting families with young children), and the home office group, would probably all contain, for example, a version of OpenOffice (be it Go-oo, LibreOffice, or the officiel OpenOffice from Oracle/Sun). Currently, on a Mandriva installation DVD, each application is in only one group.(Server being one of their groups.) Overlapping installation groups allows us to target many uses on the same DVD. We could consider a target as a usage focus. Many users would have more than one focus -- for example, developers would want various development tools, as well as maybe home office if they are an independant consultant. There also could be a multi-level tree. A global group for developers, with a sub-group for packagers (RPM tools), another for C/C++, another for Perl, etc. Or for a potentially more common theme, a global group for education, with sub-groups for pre-school/kindergarten, elementary, secondary, post-secondary. And these various subgroups would almost necessarily have overlaps. The possibilities are only limited by our collective imaginations. The more I think of this, I see an advantage of allowing the DVD installer to access an external group file, (on a usb memory key for example), for more flexibility on installation. Especially useful to install the same software selection on a large number of computers -- without creating a custom installation DVD. Think of the potential :) - André (andre999) Actually, Mandriva did do this, but on a smaller scale, when installing the ISO you got the the choice of desktop KDE, GNOME or personalized (http://wiki.mandriva.com/fr/Installer_Mandriva_Free#Choix_du_bureau). In the personalized section, you could still choose (in my case) the KDE but also any other distro type of pick that you wanted. It would make sense to offer the choices here. For example Gamer; Business; Music; Video; Education etc. The users could, at this point, tailor the installation to one that would suit them best according to their needs. All on one DVD! No need to have multiple type of DVD's. This would be simple enough. Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Michael Scherer a écrit : Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 à 22:05 +0800, Kira a écrit : A distribution for Newbie is good, but I think what Graham said is better. Well, saying a distribution for newbies is not as good as it sound. If you market the distribution so people think if you are a newbie, use this distro, people will think he use this distribution so he is a newbie. This will drive knowledgeable peoples away to others distribution, because they will feel they will learn more by using another distro ( which is wrong ) and because others peoples will appear as more knowledgeable when they use a distro that is not aimed at newbies. In turn, this mean a diminution of the global expertise in the community. Less expert users to answer to support, less experts users to report bug, fix packages, create softwares or contribute, and to basically teach to new users how to be good community member resulting in less quality, and a less sustainable community. Apple does it correctly. They never say we target newbie users. See http://www.apple.com//why-mac/ better computer most advanced os award winning support latest technology software you love. Everything resolve around how they are good, not how beginner you can be. Or see http://www.apple.com/why-mac/better-os/ they say it is easy, but they never say it is easy and can be used by a newbie. They say it is easy and you will learn how to use it fast, which is more positive. And so I think we should also try to avoid this pitfall, right from the start, if we want to have a thriving sustainable community. how about : Mageia : Linux that just works Mageia : Easy, Powerful, and Secure The danger is to identify Mageia too much with any particular market. Mandriva has attracted users and developpers by its ease of use. Mageia starts with this strength, which we should promote. That doesn't stop us from communicating the range of capabilities of Mageia, just that we should avoid too narrow a focus. - André (andre999)
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Targeting the school boards makes a lot of sense. Note that Openoffice targeted various gov't organisations in France, some of which ended up migrating to Mandriva as well. Maybe that could work with school boards as well. I'm tempted to try something like that with mine, in banlieue of Montréal. Just out of curiosity, what is your school board ? For the server, if Mandriva management were a little more reasonable, it would be good to partner with them. (I'd like to see something like RedHat/Fedora.) In any case, you can't go wrong with RedHat. André (andre999) Bonjour André: As an example, the official word from the Ontario Ministry of Education is that if users cannot afford the use of MSOffice, that we are allowed to promote the use of StarOffice. Here is the official link: http://www.osapac.org/db/view_software.php?id=310 Sun had made arrangements to provide support through their 1-800 ... telephone service (unofficially, they had also said that they would have supported OpenOffice user queries as well, although this policy may have changed after this policy had been posted on the net). There are over 2 million students being taught in Ontario where I teach. Quite a good market to target. You can find the statistics on registered school student numbers here: http://www42.statcan.ca/smr08/2007/smr08_088_2007-eng.htm If we were to commit to an Education based install (this could be done at the point of installation where you could tag the type of distro that you would want installed) with SOLID alternatives for the most common software packages used in educational institutions, then we could make a convincing case for the installation of Mageia desktops in schools. Most governmental agencies today are sensitive to ways of cutting down on expenses. The only problem that I would see in doing such a promotion is that this type of usage would require a server/client solution. This is where the choice of server partnership would become important. RehHat and Suse are well-known servers options in the business world. We could then partner up with them and make sure that Mageia/RedHat or Mageia/Suse solutions are rock solid. Unless we seek a partnership with MandrivaLinux server, but in North American markets, Mandriva is really not a force to contend with and is not really known. Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
2010/10/3 andré and...@laposte.net: Targeting the school boards makes a lot of sense. Again this is something you can not generalize, different countries have different structures. In Germany it is not a school board who decides what software will be bought for a certain region or school. This is decided on state level for the various states of the federal republic. You have to go to some state office and compete with the reps of Microsoft. You do not talk to parents or teachers, it's some bureaucrats who decide this over here (with very few exceptions). Same with many other countries. This school board system as in the US is not a world wide system.
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Le 2010-10-03 02:34, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit : 2010/10/3 andréand...@laposte.net: Targeting the school boards makes a lot of sense. Again this is something you can not generalize, different countries have different structures. In Germany it is not a school board who decides what software will be bought for a certain region or school. This is decided on state level for the various states of the federal republic. You have to go to some state office and compete with the reps of Microsoft. You do not talk to parents or teachers, it's some bureaucrats who decide this over here (with very few exceptions). Same with many other countries. This school board system as in the US is not a world wide system. I can't speak for André (he sounds like he is Canadian), but I am not a US citizen, I am Canadian. Our school system and software purchase models are the same as you describe. However, we do consult with school boards and interested partners before acquiring software licences. I am sure, the German states would consult with their partners before doing such as well. We have provinces in Canada and, as you say, in Germany you have states -- same hierarchy but with different names. As far as I know, the American model is more of a federalist model and consultation/coordination is done mostly from a national point of view. I am sure someone on the list will straighten us out on this account. We shouldn't assume that, if people describe a different system on this ML, that they are therefore American citizen who are trying to impose it on everyone. I just assume that we are all Canadians on the list (chuckles). Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
On Sunday 03 Oct 2010 21:06:22 Marc Paré wrote: Le 2010-10-03 02:34, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit : 2010/10/3 andréand...@laposte.net: Targeting the school boards makes a lot of sense. Again this is something you can not generalize, different countries have different structures. In Germany it is not a school board who decides what software will be bought for a certain region or school. This is decided on state level for the various states of the federal republic. You have to go to some state office and compete with the reps of Microsoft. You do not talk to parents or teachers, it's some bureaucrats who decide this over here (with very few exceptions). Same with many other countries. This school board system as in the US is not a world wide system. I can't speak for André (he sounds like he is Canadian), but I am not a US citizen, I am Canadian. Our school system and software purchase models are the same as you describe. However, we do consult with school boards and interested partners before acquiring software licences. I am sure, the German states would consult with their partners before doing such as well. We have provinces in Canada and, as you say, in Germany you have states -- same hierarchy but with different names. As far as I know, the American model is more of a federalist model and consultation/coordination is done mostly from a national point of view. I am sure someone on the list will straighten us out on this account. We shouldn't assume that, if people describe a different system on this ML, that they are therefore American citizen who are trying to impose it on everyone. I just assume that we are all Canadians on the list (chuckles). I noticed that there seemed to be an overwhelming sense of reasonableness, Maybe you're right. ;) Marc GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Open Technologies) www.theingots.org
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
2010/10/3 Marc Paré m...@marcpare.com: I can't speak for André (he sounds like he is Canadian), but I am not a US citizen, I am Canadian. Our school system and software purchase models are the same as you describe. However, we do consult with school boards and interested partners before acquiring software licences. I am sure, the German states would consult with their partners before doing such as well Unfortunately they do not. There have been lots of discussions but especially the hierarchy concerning education is very tight over here. All decisions are political decisions, not primarily based on technics or facts but on the political programs. SIngle schools or parents or students are not involved in such decisions. wobo
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Le 2010-10-03 04:34, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit : 2010/10/3 Marc Parém...@marcpare.com: I can't speak for André (he sounds like he is Canadian), but I am not a US citizen, I am Canadian. Our school system and software purchase models are the same as you describe. However, we do consult with school boards and interested partners before acquiring software licences. I am sure, the German states would consult with their partners before doing such as well Unfortunately they do not. There have been lots of discussions but especially the hierarchy concerning education is very tight over here. All decisions are political decisions, not primarily based on technics or facts but on the political programs. SIngle schools or parents or students are not involved in such decisions. wobo It is strange that parents, teachers and even students would not have a say. How can there be an acquisition and amortization period for your software programmes if you do not consult with your partners? I do not know of any system where it would survive without input from groups using the software/hardware. Otherwise, people would simply not use the software that was dictated to them and the politicians would then have to try to rationalize the reasons why they spent the $ for software that nobody uses. There must be a consultative process otherwise your educational system would have complained for sure. In Canada, and in my province of Ontario, we are even mandated to get input from our students. We all have a say. That is not to say that there is no political involvement, but even so, voices of all ages are heard and reported back to the people in charge of planning and purchases. Marc
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Quote: marc wrote on Sun, 03 October 2010 10:57 There must be a consultative process otherwise your educational system would have complained for sure. Germans are used to not question authorities, so this is not strange. Different country, different mentality, that's why talking abut global PR/marketing strategies makes little sense. So many global corporations had to learn this the hard way.
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
2010/10/3 Marc Paré m...@marcpare.com: It is strange that parents, teachers and even students would not have a say. How can there be an acquisition and amortization period for your software programmes if you do not consult with your partners? Schools and parents and students are not partners for the politicians. The problem is, high level MS reps (even Mr. Gates did) visit the MP (like the governor of a US state) and talks with him. Then the contracts are signed and the whole hierarchy downwards has to act according to those contracts. Schools and students and parents are at the bottom of that hierarchy. Who said we do have an education problem? the politicians would then have to try to rationalize the reasons why they spent the $ for software that nobody uses. There must be a consultative process otherwise your educational system would have complained for sure. They do complain, so what? The politicians have their opinions and they act upon that. If the people's annoyance level is high enough the people will show it at next elections. But whoever they vote for, they are jsut the same. Sorry, I did not want to get into politics, it's just that over here all education is ruled by the verious states of our federal republic. wobo
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
2010/10/2 Frank Griffin f...@roadrunner.com: They do the work because they benefit by it (or their vision of the distro benefits by it). And as soon as they have the feeling that they're wasting their time they turn to something else. wobo
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Graham Lauder a écrit : On Friday 01 Oct 2010 20:37:52 Wolfgang Bornath wrote: 2010/10/1 Graham Lauderyori...@openoffice.org: The families: if the kid wants a computer then either Dad buys a new one and the kids get the old, or they buy a new one but mom has no say, it's either Dad or the kids because the parents don't know anything about computers. Nonsense, It's interesting I know quite a few German families here in NZ, perhaps that's why they migrated, so the wife could make the majority of the purchasing decisions. ;) I'm afraid that your impressions fly in the face of all the real marketing intelligence. Dad or kids buy the computers because Mum has been left out of the demographic, typical given the number of women in the industry, but target that demographic and Mum becomes decision maker. You are partly right, but you miss an important point. It is probably true, in families in liberal western societies, that the mother decides most of the purchases, including what specific item is purchased. And it may well be that the mother decides whether or not to buy a computer. However, at least here in Canada (where women do indeed make most of the purchasing decisions), women have a strong tendancy to defer to a male opinion in deciding what computer to purchase, or operating system or software to use. This even occurs in professional settings, in contexts where a woman obviously has the greatest understanding of the company's needs. I've seen this numerous times in consulting, where I had to encourage their input in order to lead to a rational decision for the company, which was prepared to follow the opinion of someone who obviously did not understand the situation. However, I do agree that the mother will have an important influence in the type of software selected, even if she allows the man to make the final decision. Note that in my mind, using this frame of mind as the primary criteria in selecting the logo is misleading. What is needed is a logo that is distinctive, and attractive. And not out of place for the technology in question. These factors are culturally dependant as well. Note that most successful computer companies use blue/green colours. A notable exception being Ubuntu - which like Microsoft, uses their bottomless pockets to promote their distro. As well as having excellent documentation. So they succeed despite their ugly brown colours. Which may be considered attractive in certain markets, like South Africa. I don't know about marketing, I've just been living here for decades and been helping in the computer field for more than 15 years. I hold computer courses entry level, I give advice with computer purchases in families, etc. All my practical experience tells me what I've written here. OK then let me put it another way, you have taught IT for 15 years. Probably in the same geographic area. It's a pretty good guess that you have probably no more than three degrees of separation to maybe 90% of the people you interact with. 90+% of the people that you interact with speak the same native tongue as you, so already your view of the world is extremely limited. So lets talk hypothetically: If you have taught for 15 years and you had an average class size of say 20. 5 periods a day that's a hundred faces a day and you saw these people once a week and assuming a 40 week school year. That's 20,000 a year hang on not enough, OK you change completely 4 times a year, so that's 80.000 a year... wow that's a lot, over 15 years that's 1.2million people you could have hypothetically interacted with each for about ten hours total. However in marketing terms on a global scale that is a pinprick sample. Marketers get information for instance, just from rewards programmes that do that sort of sample in many countries in any one hour of any one day across many demographics, ages, income streams, locations and so on and what this tells us is that apart from some minor local differences, people in western democratic, first world countries behave in a very similar fashion. Obviously you don't understand how surveys work. It makes me wonder if you have ever done one. (btw, I have.) Surveys depend on a very limited sample, and extrapolate that to presume a global result. Like election polls, they can be -- and often are -- dead wrong. The experiences of wobo -- and similar experiences myself -- are just as valid. I'm not trying to say that you do not have good insights -- but rather that in is too easy to get carried away, and other's input is important. Every place is unique, but not as unique as we'd all like to believe, one thing that marketing tells you. A good example is Micky Ds, the same everywhere, with slight local variations. Nonsense (to use the same language as you do). You can't apply some junkfood chain success story to computers and software. LOL, in fact you can, at the
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Marc Paré a écrit : Le 2010-10-01 05:56, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit : 2010/10/1 Marc Parém...@marcpare.com: 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. - André (andre999) I like this approach. Same here. When I used SuSE Linux 4.4.1 they had the same approach. I even did several installations, each with a different set of applications, using the same /home. A good way to find out what you really want/need. Marc, what you wrote about kids being the future is common knowledge, I wonder that so many companies do not recognize that. Microsoft does, they are sponsoring school computer networks and internet access, thus creating their future client base. wobo Suse Linux really lost momentum when Novell didn't/has not recognized that its netware application days are at an end. If they pushed for a Suse educational netware application/distro, most school boards using the Novel netware apps would migrate this way. Fewer disruptions to their systems. School boards plan 5-10 years in advance for changes and it is extremely difficult for them to change in the middle of planned migration. There is a lot of money involved in this. Most board will pay Microsoft approx. $30-50/seat for use of MSWord -- so for example our board has over 10,000 computers. That is a huge cost just for the use of a Wordprocessor. I don't know the cost of the Novell install/contract but it would most likely approach this amount. If Mageia had educational partners on-board it would be a huge initial plus to the distro. School boards are, in a traditional sense, expected to spend money and not save/make money. We could, for example, offer to tailor certain aspects of the distro for our education partners. Note that the focus on educational institutions is for foster use of knowledge, so they would most likely be interested in areas of a distro that focussed on kids/adult learning needs. If Mageia did this well, then this could then lead to more educational partners coming on board. We would only need 2-5 educational partners to kick-start this approach. I would suggest to try for 1 educational partner per continent. It would then mushroom from there. Unfortunately, not having a Mageia server service may hurt us. But there is nothing to stop us from partnering or tooling up our community distro to work well with a server (in this case I would go for RedHat servers). There is no doubt that the next major expenses in the very near future for school boards is the change in netware applications. And they are still very confused. What they do know is that it will most likely be a linux solution. That is pretty well accepted. Marc Targeting the school boards makes a lot of sense. Note that Openoffice targeted various gov't organisations in France, some of which ended up migrating to Mandriva as well. Maybe that could work with school boards as well. I'm tempted to try something like that with mine, in banlieue of Montréal. Just out of curiosity, what is your school board ? For the server, if Mandriva management were a little more reasonable, it would be good to partner with them. (I'd like to see something like RedHat/Fedora.) In any case, you can't go wrong with RedHat. André (andre999)
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
I'm not sure what's going on with this ML. I responded to a post by Graham Lauder, and it ended up going to him but not the ML. He then responded to me privately, and we both agreed to repost to the ML. According to the gmane archives, he did, but I never received his repost, so I can't place my reply in the correct branch of the thread. I'll post it here, just so that it's *somewhere* in the thread... Graham Lauder wrote: 42 for me, I started with NCR in August of 1968 and went on to be MD of my own company for eighteen years, these days retired on my little country estate, wonderful lifestyle, bloody awful internet connection. :) Congrats, we're both old farts :-) And this is not economics this is Marketing 101 No, sorry, it's not marketing when you frame it as you did: We do this because at the end of the day infrastructure costs, marketing costs, a whole pile of things cost. One day some patch or application, which is essential but completely non-sexy could require us to pay a dev on contract and so on and so forth. That's economics, pure and simple. Marketing is trying to make something attractive to potential purchasers. A distro doesn't have any of those. You make my point exactly. The infrastructure costs are fixed, and the donor pool will be larger if the user base is larger. [] If MDV had trumpeted itself as a KDE-only Family (or Education, or whatever) distro, and reinforced that by excluding packages and infrastructure support for other stuff, I wouldn't have given a dime. And you miss my point entirely, there is NO trumpeting, that's advertising, there is no exclusion, rather inclusion of a missed market Oh, come on. Trumpeting and advertising are essentially the same thing, at last in the context of this discussion. And what you're advocating is certainly exclusion; you're saying that we should design and promote the distro as a fill-in-the-blank distro in order to capture the mindset of a specific market share, to the implicit exclusion of other aims if resource limitations encroach. I'm a marketing guy not a hacker and I haven't been part of the marketing of OBS, but I seem to remember that OBS packages for a whole heap of distros including even deb based ones. However I may be wrong talk to Jos Poortvliet or Andreas Jaeger on the opensuse lists OK, then maybe we need to look at piggybacking on OBS. The idea I floated was an idea, with a suggestion of an implementation. If there's a better implementation, that's fine; we can use it. Focus is all about excluding non-essential activities so that a company can focus its limited resources on the desires of a specific market. Focus in this case is about establishing branding, nothing else You're entitled to your definition, as I am mine. In common parlance (as well as in this industry) focus (as used by non-developers) very definitely implied concentrate on this and not that. That not branding; it's triage and prioritization. I am wondering why you are trying to convince me, this is not my decision, I am merely an idea generator. I give reasons as to why I believe that this target market is a good one and I foster debate. My goal is simply to establish criteria for branding, nothing else right now. I'm not sure how seriously to take this. You post an opinion about channeling the distro to a specific audience, and when I respond, you wonder why I'm trying to convince *you* ? Frankly, I doubt if I *could* convince you, and it was never my intention to try. I know an enthusiast when I read one. I'm simply participating in the debate you initiated and want to foster. Which includes the issue of whether we need branding at the distro level or not. My opinion is that we do not. Our infrastructure costs will be relatively fixed, and will be dwarfed by the cost of developer and other contributor time it will take to maintain Mageia. The community resources we will discourage by advertising ourselves as a niche distro will cost us much more than the infrastructure budget. So, while I would concede that your branding argument would make sense if we were embarking on a commercial venture, I'd have to say that it is pretty low on the priority list for a community distro.
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 00:43, Michael Scherer m...@zarb.org wrote: Yup, the distro that make you become expert, something like that. One thing we must not forget is that we need people that contribute if we want to survive. A commercial distribution requires money ( and therefore users that can bring money , either directly, or either indirectly ( service, ads, etc )) to survive. We are not a commercial distribution, so the pressure is lower with regard to money. But we still to have people that develop it, and if we cannot pay people for that directly ( since we are not a company, even if maybe some companies will help us later ), we need to directly use contributions as a way to ensure our own sustainability. SO IMHO, this is what we should seek if we want to survive. Gathering contributions should be one of our goals. The second point is that we are here because we want community empowerment. So community also must be a strong point, especially since it will appeal to people that would allow the community to survive. So again, I think that empowerment should be another one of the goals. Now, we must ask ourself what is pushing people to contribute. There is various papers, like this one http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1113/1033 ( I let the analysis as a exercise for the moment ). And we need to find a way to combine this with others goals. While a traditional motivation in free software is to solve our own problem ( and that's also part of community empowerment ), this is not enough. We also need to think to more than us. And I think that's the complex part. We have 2 choices. Either we try to find a market where no one went, or a market where someone went, and try to be better. Or maybe both. -- Michael Scherer I agree. One way towards that goal is something I thought about since some years : lessen the divide between the GUI and CLI approach to computers, and OS's in particular. And thus between the 'user' and the 'geek' cultures (even if geeks are users too). In particular : that the GUI tools, for example the GUI draktools, provide a link (button) to a short explanation of how they do what they do. For example : what are the configuration files that are changed, and how. It could be seen as an extension of what is possible with an icon of the Panel : a right-click gets you to see what it does : the command is visible. When I was teaching an introduction to OS's, I used Mandr/ake/iva this way for people mainly familiar with Windows : the GUI functions are similar, even if different, but you can have a 'readable text' access to what really happens. At first I just told them which configuration files where concerned. Later I wrote some simple perl scripts using fileschanged ( http://fileschanged.sourceforge.net/) to let them find it themselves. But there were many limitations : for instance KDE configurations are not writen to file directly. Anyway it would be much more helpful if it is incorporated in the GUI tool itself (eventually as an option). It would encourage progressive exploration of the underlying workings. For anybody, but evidently exploratory behavior is more prevalent in younger people. Viewed with some optimism, if this approach is extended, it could lead to an experience similar to that of people who came to programming through contact with the early 8 bit microcomputers. (Many people lament the disapearence of that path of access). From the 'magic' point of view it would point to : Magea : the School of Magic -- Frederic
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Graham Lauder wrote: On Saturday 02 Oct 2010 01:14:36 Frank Griffin wrote: And you miss my point entirely, there is NO trumpeting, that's advertising, there is no exclusion, rather inclusion of a missed market Oh, come on. Trumpeting and advertising are essentially the same thing, at last in the context of this discussion. Um, that what I said: That the trumpeting IS advertising... Apologies for missing your meaning, but that phrase (there is NO trumpeting, that's advertising) can be read two different ways depending upon what you take that's to be modifying, i.e. trumpeting or what you're advocating. You're reading a hell of a lot more in there than I put. You seem to be talking at cross purposes. When I say inclusion I mean inclusion of another market that hasn't been catered to before. You're talking about packages, I'm talking about people. No, your original post talked about packages, to quote: 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. Documentation added to show parents how to set up accounts for the kids and how to make it Net safe. That is a clear recommendation to configure the distro for that target audience. Installing a lot of kid-friendly packages implies they have to be in the ISOs, which means that some other packages won't be. Now I'm convinced we're not talking about the same thing. You seem to think we are wanting to embark on some global advertising campaign And all I want is to decide what colour pallet our logo and webpage should use. By figuring out what a primary target market is we can then figure out the colours that will suit that demographic. That's it Simple! As I pointed out above, you advocated targeting the distribution *itself* to a niche market. I really have no interest in what colors the website uses; my replies were prompted because I have lots of interest in what the distro contains.
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
2010/10/1 Graham Lauder yori...@openoffice.org: OK then let me put it another way, you have taught IT for 15 years. Teaching IT was only the smallest part. I was involved in selling, purchasing, advising - the whole area, not just that small marketing section. And I talked to people all over the country, including international events, not just one special geografic area like NZ. Western Europe is a mix of many different areas, not just one. So pls do not try to talk to me like you know it all. LOL, in fact you can, at the end of the day it is a consumer item. It is a luxury good that only a small proportion of the worlds population can afford. In capitalist consumer model societies the market has little variation apart from local fashion. So for instance, like McDs, Ipods and Iphones are sold the same way world wide and that is matched with other global brands. Wrong, Here it depends on which item it is who makes the decisions in a family. Over here Mom may decide in general whethere a purchase is made or not but concerning computers and software the kids or Dad decide what is bought. The wife just wants to use it. As I pointed out above your experience is in fact limited, that's not a bad thing, it means you can target those variations that the global brands ignore in a local market. Same applies to you if you want to put it that way. Your sample is really small concerning German imigrants. Why do you think they emigrated from Germany? Because they were the typical Germans? Sounds like I saw a German wearing a hat, all Germans wear hats. thing. I know some people from NZ but I would never judge all NZ by those few. However our need is to be a global brand and so we target demographics that we know exist every where. So for instance: Parents everywhere, no matter what country or society, want the best for their Kids... simple really. Simple but not related. It's related to clothing, food, whatever, not to the technical stuff. While there is not much trouble with parents when clothing or schooling is related, we do have an ongoing discussion in Germany about the problem that parents do not care what their children do with computers (ego shooters, facebook, etc.) because the kids know more about computers. Anyhow, I made my points. wobo
[Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
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. 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. 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? Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Open Technologies) www.theingots.org ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 13:21:04, Graham Lauder a écrit : 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. I don't know whether I agree or not, but I would like to point out that to me Mandriva is/was et Mageia will/could be a generalist distribution. Which means : - suitable for power users (if one can count me in this category, Mandriva is my desktop of choice) - suitable for your individuals (My young brother uses Mandriva Linux) - suitable for community enterprise and for professionnal actors (We've got more than 400 Mandriva Free servers in production in french hospitals, and several workstations here) I know there is a difference between saying that the distro is suitable for something and its marketing targeting , but I still remember people telling me Mandriva is a distro for newbies, not for power users or businesses. I want to avoid this at all prices. If I were to choose right now, I would say : advertise Mageia as a generalist distro suitable for many needs just like Mandriva is/was, and then have specific compaigns to highlight some specific usages : in educationnal fields, server usage, workstation usage, etc. Regards Samuel Verschelde ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
I like very much the professional approach and analysis of Graham. And I agree pretty much. However, a family distro means, for me, the married man / woman + kids. And that's where I find Marc's approach correct. If you wan that the whole family could enjoy the experience, you must provide to the distro the tools-for-common-tasks like office suite, Internet, IM, etc etc, educational software and security-for-kids tools, and of course, solid game experience. If you don't include games, probably you'll have dual-boot PC's instead of Megaia-only PCs. There will be cases where dual-boot will be inevitable (maybe because dad needs a particular tool and Wine is not an option), but we're talking about the majority. Cheers! Gustavo Giampaoli (aka tavillo1980) ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
在 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 21:34:26 +0800, Samuel Verschelde sto...@laposte.net寫道: I don't know whether I agree or not, but I would like to point out that to me Mandriva is/was et Mageia will/could be a generalist distribution. Which means : - suitable for power users (if one can count me in this category, Mandriva is my desktop of choice) - suitable for your individuals (My young brother uses Mandriva Linux) - suitable for community enterprise and for professionnal actors (We've got more than 400 Mandriva Free servers in production in french hospitals, and several workstations here) I know there is a difference between saying that the distro is suitable for something and its marketing targeting , but I still remember people telling me Mandriva is a distro for newbies, not for power users or businesses. I want to avoid this at all prices. If I were to choose right now, I would say : advertise Mageia as a generalist distro suitable for many needs just like Mandriva is/was, and then have specific compaigns to highlight some specific usages : in educationnal fields, server usage, workstation usage, etc. I think what Graham want to express is that Mageia got to find her own position in the market, if we hope Mageia could be better promoted. Yes, Mageia or Mandrake/Mandriva is for all purpose, but every distro can be all-purpose. The point is: There's no distinctive difference toward other distribution. The failure of Mandriva SA business can be connected to many factor, which I believe part of the problem is that the product don't stands out among competitors. All- purpose is good, but some personality is also important. A distribution for Newbie is good, but I think what Graham said is better. We have to find a specific portion of the market to survive, with something stands out among other competitors like educational/small business/suited for... blah, blah, blah. Just saying that Mageia can do anything would make new comers wonder: So, what's the difference Mageia had toward other distribution? We can still list out what Mageia can do, but some personality is definitely needed, not just All-purpose, that's confusing and would makes Mageia no difference comparing to other distro, since you can't speak out your major difference in aspect of Market share. ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Marc Paré wrote: Le 2010-09-30 07:21, Graham Lauder a écrit : The feel to me that came from the brainstorming was that Mageia could be marketed as the Family Distro. 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. I think that these are endeavors for an entity which is exactly what we've just got done saying Mageia *isn't*, namely a commercial venture. Currently, the package inventory of Mandriva is fairly all-inclusive, and I don't think we should abandon any specific interest group. Mandriva may have to do this to remain commercially viable - we do not. However, let me try to translate your desires into a more technical objective that would meet the need.. Traditionally, the MDV ISO-building process has been complex, not well-documented, and difficult for anyone outside of MDV to use. I think Mageia should have a simplified process for package selection that would enable community users to assemble install ISOs geared to specific needs, such as those you mention. This should be as easy as constructing an ISO using k3b or brasero, but would need to be driven by the RPM information (e.g. requires). Actually, a lot of the RPMDrake design could be used (if not much of the actual code) to allow a user to drag and drop Application Categories or specific packages. As with any CD/DVD burner, the GUI would keep track of whether you were over the limit for the volume size, so that you could then pare the package list. This would allow us to have as many ISOs (or ISO sets) as there are people interested in maintaining the individual content lists. You could have a server version, an office desktop version, a games version, an education version, a power-user version, etc. It would also end the endless bickering among those who want every media combination from a stub-based full network install to a fully self-contained multi-DVD or even Blu-Ray install. You want it, you design it, you press the button and build it. It should not be too difficult to write a utility that goes through a content list and automatically updates the package names to newer versions, so maintenance could be minimal. Of course, you'd need to fire up the build utility to see if there are new package requirements or if you've exceeded your space constraint. These need not all be available on the same release date. Whatever we decide constitutes a core set could form the actual release, with the others appearing as the interested groups have time to produce them. Another idea that fits with this is the concept of a two-tiered install: create a single general-purpose bare-bones ISO that installs a common baseline of packages, and create a variety of secondary install ISOs geared to specific audiences. People would download the common one plus whichever other(s) they wanted. ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 16:05:26, Kira a écrit : So, what's the difference Mageia had toward other distribution? Simple to use yet powerful : - newbie-friendly (yes ubuntu is on this market, but to me Mandriva does it better) - powerful - comprehensive (many packages available in many fields) Then nothing prevents from saying also, for example : Mageia, ideal for music making, with news, screenshots, people sharing their experience, howtos... Mageia, easy yet powerful on servers, ... You said nothing about my concern that Mandriva may be seen only as, say, a distribution for education. What about that ? Regards Samuel Verschelde ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 16:09:25, Frank Griffin a écrit : These need not all be available on the same release date. Whatever we decide constitutes a core set could form the actual release, with the others appearing as the interested groups have time to produce them. And then we advertise them as much as we can, without forgetting to stress that those are just specialized versions of the core all-purpose Mageia distribution. The family targeted distribution may be one major sub-project in Mageia if this is seen as a real market to target. Regards Samuel Verschelde ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
在 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:18:08 +0800, Samuel Verschelde sto...@laposte.net寫道: Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 16:05:26, Kira a écrit : So, what's the difference Mageia had toward other distribution? Simple to use yet powerful : - newbie-friendly (yes ubuntu is on this market, but to me Mandriva does it better) - powerful - comprehensive (many packages available in many fields) Then nothing prevents from saying also, for example : Mageia, ideal for music making, with news, screenshots, people sharing their experience, howtos... Mageia, easy yet powerful on servers, ... You said nothing about my concern that Mandriva may be seen only as, say, a distribution for education. What about that ? All purpose means no one knows what the distro wants to do. Making a specific version for education/small business or whatever won't makes the distro seems only focus on one thing, but a proof of full feature OS. The point is: you have to emphasis something different, not something others also owns/easily achieved/already well-implemented/advertised. I don't agree with the way ubuntu flushing the whole board of different purpose but actually same thing strategy, but it does makes people knows what to choose to fit their need, which is important to makes people accept your product. We do have to find a place in the market slice, or no one would care about who you are. All-purpose is great, but not for people who is unfamiliar to our distro: It's too vague and not attractive since no one knows your strength. ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Choosing a target market is more than making a listing of your competitors' markets and combining some words to create a unique-sounding market. And it's more that guessing that some as-yet-unidentified market can be grepped from the imagination. For Mageia, it's an expression of leadership. It won't be found in a mail list survey or a popularity poll; it will be found in the Mageia leadership. There are many, many Linux distros in existence. Each has its own take on kernel patches, packaging managers, desktops, multimedia, programming languages, management tools, color schemes and so on. These things are superficial since once installed, every Linux distro is doing essentially the same thing. The choice of those little pieces and their development is what excites and motivates the people that put together the distro The effectiveness of all these pieces is what excites and motivates the user of the distro. Meeting the needs of the end user determines if the distro will be popular or not. But it's picking the correct end user to target that determines the ultimate success of the distro. Mandriva never figured out who its end user was or what its market was and as a result tried to be everything to everybody and failed, not because it was a bad distro (it remains one of the best), but because it never had focus, it never knew its market. One of the most important things that the Mageia leadership needs to determine is the focus, the goal, the entire point of the existence of Mageia. The leadership needs to decide. They need to do it because they need the investment in order to be motivated to lead, manage and build the distro. They need to do it because it demonstrates that they are capable of leading us and are worth investing in. They need to do it because it needs to be done now. -- Hoyt ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 17:03:30, Gustavo Giampaoli a écrit : We do have to find a place in the market slice, or no one would care about who you are. All-purpose is great, but not for people who is unfamiliar to our distro: It's too vague and not attractive since no one knows your strength. I agree. If you have being in linux for a little time, you learn that all distros are Linux are Linux are Linux. Every distro, with the right packages, can be whatever the user whants it to be. Maybe some uses DEB, other RPM, Gentoo uses ports, Pardus Pisi. But these are small differences. The truth is any linux-based OS can be whatever user whants. So, Mageia should say this is is my target, my zone. I can do all, but this is what I do best Cheers! The names Mandrake, and now Mageia, make me think about ease of use : everything works like magic. The Mandriva Control Center is one of the strength of Mandriva and now Mageia. I hope it will remains such. You change a parameter, and voilà, it works like expected. (Of course you still can tweak configuration files by yourself, but you can do that in any distribution). One of the tools we use most is drakconnect in console, for our customers (hospitals). They want to change the gateway, or IP address, and we don't have to make them tweak any configuration file (many wouldn't know how to do !) : just issue the drakconnect command, follow the steps, and everything works like a charm. Want to open a new port in the firewall ? Just run drakfirewall and type in the port you have to open. The drakxtools, and the ability to chose between different desktops (KDE, GNOME, XFCE...), are what I value most in Mandriva. Sure, many will have different opinions, now you have mine. I saw people on forums say at last we don't have to use the command line to configure everything. I went to ubuntu forums and they always give commands like 'sudo this', 'sudo that' to solve various problems. Don't get me wrong : I use the command line very often. But I like that in Mandriva if you don't want to, often you don't have to use it. Don't know if it makes the discussion about marketing position go forward... Regards Samuel Verschelde ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 à 22:05 +0800, Kira a écrit : A distribution for Newbie is good, but I think what Graham said is better. Well, saying a distribution for newbies is not as good as it sound. If you market the distribution so people think if you are a newbie, use this distro, people will think he use this distribution so he is a newbie. This will drive knowledgeable peoples away to others distribution, because they will feel they will learn more by using another distro ( which is wrong ) and because others peoples will appear as more knowledgeable when they use a distro that is not aimed at newbies. In turn, this mean a diminution of the global expertise in the community. Less expert users to answer to support, less experts users to report bug, fix packages, create softwares or contribute, and to basically teach to new users how to be good community member resulting in less quality, and a less sustainable community. Apple does it correctly. They never say we target newbie users. See http://www.apple.com//why-mac/ better computer most advanced os award winning support latest technology software you love. Everything resolve around how they are good, not how beginner you can be. Or see http://www.apple.com/why-mac/better-os/ they say it is easy, but they never say it is easy and can be used by a newbie. They say it is easy and you will learn how to use it fast, which is more positive. And so I think we should also try to avoid this pitfall, right from the start, if we want to have a thriving sustainable community. -- Michael Scherer ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Reading all this one thing comes to my mind: the world is not the same all over the world. Same applies to your assessments of school decisions, families and the Linux/WIndows issue. Over here the public office of a state controlls what computers and operating systems are used in schools, money is not a criteria there. It is, of course, in the sense that many schools can not have computers at all or just 10 machines for a school of 500 students. Ah, yes, I'm talking about Germany, not somewhere in central Africa. The public office makes deals with Microsoft (sometimes Mr. Gates himself came to visit before a new contract was signed), the largest local t-com provider sponsors the internet access and the schools have no say in that. The families: if the kid wants a computer then either Dad buys a new one and the kids get the old, or they buy a new one but mom has no say, it's either Dad or the kids because the parents don't know anything about computers. One of the largest and fastest growing groups of computer users over here are people of age, retired persons who visit computer courses in the neighborhood center (I'm teaching there sometimes). They are a target group also. I think the one you picked (young couples with kids) are those who are the unlikeliest targets - Mom and Dad are working, perhaps with computers, most times with Windows. Kids will learn their computer knowledge in school, not at home because Mom and Dad have no time for that. See, this is quite different to the picture you are painting, and I can imagine that it may be still different in other areas of the world. Therefore picking one target group for a worldwide project like this is the wrong way IMHO. wobo ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
On Thursday 30 September 2010, Michael Scherer wrote: Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 à 22:05 +0800, Kira a écrit : A distribution for Newbie is good, but I think what Graham said is better. Well, saying a distribution for newbies is not as good as it sound. If you market the distribution so people think if you are a newbie, use this distro, people will think he use this distribution so he is a newbie. ... In turn, this mean a diminution of the global expertise in the community ++ What about the easy to learn distro as a concept? -- Say NO to spam and viruses. Stop using Microsoft Windows! ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
On Friday 01 Oct 2010 03:09:25 Frank Griffin wrote: Marc Paré wrote: Le 2010-09-30 07:21, Graham Lauder a écrit : The feel to me that came from the brainstorming was that Mageia could be marketed as the Family Distro. 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. I think that these are endeavors for an entity which is exactly what we've just got done saying Mageia *isn't*, namely a commercial venture. In a phrase: Horse Doo doo (not exactly what I wanted to say but I wanted to protect the G rating! :) ) This is not about commercial, it's about market. Mageia has a donation system, in my culture the nearest thing is called Koha (Yes the name of the open source Library Management Software) It is a sort of open source value assignation system, it's not that it is cost free but more that it's Cost optional and the simple fact that we have a donation system in place means we follow this model. Branding is also about this but we'll come back to that. We do this because at the end of the day infrastructure costs, marketing costs, a whole pile of things cost. One day some patch or application, which is essential but completely non-sexy could require us to pay a dev on contract and so on and so forth. Now our problem is that in these days of everything free off the Internet getting Koha is problematic. However there is, obviously, a proportion of the market that is willing to give Koha. That proportion in a market is generally but arguably fixed, so the bigger the market the greater the Koha. Our advantage is that our costs vary little with the size of the market. There could be an argument made that Cost Optional is a commercial model, but a commercial model demands profit margins and I don't think that's where we're at. Currently, the package inventory of Mandriva is fairly all-inclusive, and I don't think we should abandon any specific interest group. Mandriva may have to do this to remain commercially viable - we do not. However, let me try to translate your desires into a more technical objective that would meet the need.. Traditionally, the MDV ISO-building process has been complex, not well-documented, and difficult for anyone outside of MDV to use. [.] You want it, you design it, you press the button and build it. It should not be too difficult to write a utility that goes through a content list and automatically updates the package names to newer versions, so maintenance could be minimal. Of course, you'd need to fire up the build utility to see if there are new package requirements or if you've exceeded your space constraint. There is already a way of doing that, it's called OBS (OpenSUSE Build service, it's free software, install it or in fact use it) and with that and SUSE Studio, OpenSUSE have that corner of the market targeted and nailed. [] Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Open Technologies) www.theingots.org ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Le vendredi 01 octobre 2010 à 00:28 +0300, P. Christeas a écrit : On Thursday 30 September 2010, Michael Scherer wrote: Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 à 22:05 +0800, Kira a écrit : A distribution for Newbie is good, but I think what Graham said is better. Well, saying a distribution for newbies is not as good as it sound. If you market the distribution so people think if you are a newbie, use this distro, people will think he use this distribution so he is a newbie. ... In turn, this mean a diminution of the global expertise in the community ++ What about the easy to learn distro as a concept? Yup, the distro that make you become expert, something like that. One thing we must not forget is that we need people that contribute if we want to survive. A commercial distribution requires money ( and therefore users that can bring money , either directly, or either indirectly ( service, ads, etc )) to survive. We are not a commercial distribution, so the pressure is lower with regard to money. But we still to have people that develop it, and if we cannot pay people for that directly ( since we are not a company, even if maybe some companies will help us later ), we need to directly use contributions as a way to ensure our own sustainability. SO IMHO, this is what we should seek if we want to survive. Gathering contributions should be one of our goals. The second point is that we are here because we want community empowerment. So community also must be a strong point, especially since it will appeal to people that would allow the community to survive. So again, I think that empowerment should be another one of the goals. Now, we must ask ourself what is pushing people to contribute. There is various papers, like this one http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1113/1033 ( I let the analysis as a exercise for the moment ). And we need to find a way to combine this with others goals. While a traditional motivation in free software is to solve our own problem ( and that's also part of community empowerment ), this is not enough. We also need to think to more than us. And I think that's the complex part. We have 2 choices. Either we try to find a market where no one went, or a market where someone went, and try to be better. Or maybe both. -- Michael Scherer ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
On Friday 01 Oct 2010 07:41:01 Michael Scherer wrote: Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 à 22:05 +0800, Kira a écrit : A distribution for Newbie is good, but I think what Graham said is better. Well, saying a distribution for newbies is not as good as it sound. Kira is being positive and you have spent the rest of the mail arguing a way to agree with her. :) But thanks anyway for the reinforcement If you market the distribution so people think if you are a newbie, use this distro, people will think he use this distribution so he is a newbie. This will drive knowledgeable peoples away to others distribution, because they will feel they will learn more by using another distro ( which is wrong ) and because others peoples will appear as more knowledgeable when they use a distro that is not aimed at newbies. In turn, this mean a diminution of the global expertise in the community. Less expert users to answer to support, less experts users to report bug, fix packages, create softwares or contribute, and to basically teach to new users how to be good community member resulting in less quality, and a less sustainable community. Apple does it correctly. They never say we target newbie users. See http://www.apple.com//why-mac/ better computer most advanced os award winning support latest technology software you love. Neither are we saying that, in fact what we would possibly be saying is Mageia has the tools to allow your Genius (tm) to achieve their place in the world or something of that nature. What you are talking about is an advertising approach not a marketing demographic and so is somewhat premature We haven't stated how we would approach the market only that we identified this as a possible target. Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Open Technologies) www.theingots.org ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
On Friday 01 Oct 2010 05:03:25 Thorsten van Lil wrote: Von: mageia-dev-boun...@mageia.org [mailto:mageia-dev-boun...@mageia.org] Im Auftrag von Gustavo Giampaoli Every distro, with the right packages, can be whatever the user whants it to be. From a logical point of you, your right. But people aren't logical. Ship a distribution with a background with balloons and some fancy window decoration and kids will love it, while other will never try it. It's stupid, because you can easily change it but nevertheless, that's it like it work. So for me the question of our main market is a question of who we want to attract. And I think Graham aims at this to, because we need a logo, main colors, a website, ... . All these parts should attract the people of our main market. YodaMan, Yo all hear dis: HEdaMan :D Sorry sleep deprivation and I watched Martin Lawrence last night! ;) What packages we ship doesn't really matters, because as you said Linux is Linux. So, who do we want to attract? Regards, TeaAge ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Open Technologies) www.theingots.org ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
Graham Lauder wrote: In a phrase: Horse Doo doo [] Mageia has a donation system [] We do this because at the end of the day infrastructure costs, marketing costs, a whole pile of things cost. One day some patch or application, which is essential but completely non-sexy could require us to pay a dev on contract and so on and so forth. Now our problem is that in these days of everything free off the Internet getting Koha is problematic. However there is, obviously, a proportion of the market that is willing to give Koha. That proportion in a market is generally but arguably fixed, so the bigger the market the greater the Koha. Our advantage is that our costs vary little with the size of the market. I'm not exactly ignorant of Economics 101, having been in this business (on the commercial side) for about 35 years. :-) You make my point exactly. The infrastructure costs are fixed, and the donor pool will be larger if the user base is larger. You can either choose to entice people to donate because of their perception of the slant (market vision) of the distro, or you can entice people to donate because they find the distro useful to them personally (otherwise known as pseudo-shareware). If you narrow the audience using the former approach, you're excluding potential contributors. I was a member of Mandriva Club for years because I thought Mandriva worth supporting; I never bought a PowerPack or a Box Set because I never needed that stuff. If MDV had trumpeted itself as a KDE-only Family (or Education, or whatever) distro, and reinforced that by excluding packages and infrastructure support for other stuff, I wouldn't have given a dime. There is already a way of doing that, it's called OBS (OpenSUSE Build service, it's free software, install it or in fact use it) and with that and SUSE Studio, OpenSUSE have that corner of the market targeted and nailed. Except that they don't have the tools that we have. The software packages are common to every distro. The tools aren't. The key to whether someone would use OBS or ours (or even OBS ported to use our packages) is the quality of the packages (currency, stability) and the quality of the distro tools. Focus is all about excluding non-essential activities so that a company can focus its limited resources on the desires of a specific market. A community distro is about servicing the largest possible community and providing a base from which others (including ourselves) can specialize. The assumption is that the community will supply the manpower needed to achieve the objectives they want achieved, and if you think that the potential developer contributor pool gives a rat's whatever about targeted image distros that don't satisfy their specific needs, then you don't know developers. And I would seriously question the assumption that 20-something families looking for commodity computing are going to become a significant donor base; that might happen if they were required to pay for it up front, and if their desire to buy it was great enough, but if they can get it and install it for free, they're outta there after that. Your contributions are going to come from people who have a longer-term view or an investment in the health of the distro. Cheers, Frank ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
Re: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
On Friday 01 Oct 2010 14:50:52 Frank Griffin wrote: Graham Lauder wrote: In a phrase: Horse Doo doo [] Mageia has a donation system [] We do this because at the end of the day infrastructure costs, marketing costs, a whole pile of things cost. One day some patch or application, which is essential but completely non-sexy could require us to pay a dev on contract and so on and so forth. Now our problem is that in these days of everything free off the Internet getting Koha is problematic. However there is, obviously, a proportion of the market that is willing to give Koha. That proportion in a market is generally but arguably fixed, so the bigger the market the greater the Koha. Our advantage is that our costs vary little with the size of the market. I'm not exactly ignorant of Economics 101, having been in this business (on the commercial side) for about 35 years. :-) 42 for me, I started with NCR in August of 1968 and eventually went on to be MD of my own company for eighteen years, these days retired on my little country estate, wonderful lifestyle, bloody awful internet connection. :) And this is not economics this is Marketing 101 You make my point exactly. The infrastructure costs are fixed, and the donor pool will be larger if the user base is larger. [] If MDV had trumpeted itself as a KDE-only Family (or Education, or whatever) distro, and reinforced that by excluding packages and infrastructure support for other stuff, I wouldn't have given a dime. And you miss my point entirely, there is NO trumpeting, that's advertising, there is no exclusion, rather inclusion of a missed market There is already a way of doing that, it's called OBS (OpenSUSE Build service, it's free software, install it or in fact use it) and with that and SUSE Studio, OpenSUSE have that corner of the market targeted and nailed. Except that they don't have the tools that we have. The software packages are common to every distro. The tools aren't. The key to whether someone would use OBS or ours (or even OBS ported to use our packages) is the quality of the packages (currency, stability) and the quality of the distro tools. I'm a marketing guy not a hacker and I haven't been part of the marketing of OBS, but I seem to remember that OBS packages for a whole heap of distros including even deb based ones. However I may be wrong talk to Jos Poortvliet or Andreas Jaeger on the opensuse lists Focus is all about excluding non-essential activities so that a company can focus its limited resources on the desires of a specific market. Focus in this case is about establishing branding, nothing else [] Cheers, Frank Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Open Technologies) www.theingots.org ___ Mageia-dev mailing list Mageia-dev@mageia.org https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev
