Re: [newbie] How to market Linux?

1999-10-20 Thread sphilp 

On Wed, Oct 20, 1999 at 04:45:48PM +, M Thompson wrote:
 Hi All,
 
 I have been a member of this list (Mandrake Newbie) for a short while now 
 and know that there are a ton of knowledgeable participants on it...I am 
 taking a Marketing class as part of my MBA curriculum.  For my Marketing 
 project, I chose Linux.  I have to develop a plan to Market my product 
 choice (Linux).

You might do well to look up the S-1 filing from Red Hat's recent IPO for
some of their ideas about marketing Linux.  The EDGAR website (sorry, no
URL) should carry it.
 
 I have already collected an extensive list of internal strengths and 
 weaknesses.  I now need to develop a list of "external" threats and 
 opportunities.  Specifically, I want to find some political-legal threats 
 and opportunities, cultural threats and opportunities, economic threats and 
 opportunities, and demographic threats and opportunities.

Political-Legal threat:
Intellectual property claims from commercial developers

Cultural threat:
A loss of the "linux development is cool" mentality 
A big flamefest among senior kernel developers (Linus can't do this
all by himself anymore)
 
Economic threat:
Commercial distributions could be hurt by cheaper competitors 
(cheapbytes, etc)

Demographic threat:
See cultural above, if the "linux is cool" aura around Linux is
lost, we lose new users.  Specifically:  BeOS, *BSD, etc.

 If possible, please steer me toward a website that lists some of the 
 external threats and opportunities facing Linux.  If possible, feel free to 
 give me your personal insights.

You might do best at the Linux Internation site, as they're primarily
interested in marketing Linux to the suits.

-- 
Steve Philp
Network Administrator
Advance Packaging Corporation
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [newbie] How to market Linux?

1999-10-20 Thread kopi kau 

M Thompson wrote:

 If possible, please steer me toward a website that lists some of the
 external threats and opportunities facing Linux.  If possible, feel free to
 give me your personal insights.

hmmm. you sure you're not from microsoft?? ;) ;)

Re: [newbie] How to market Linux?

1999-10-20 Thread Seth Gibson 

On Wed, 20 Oct 1999, you wrote:
 If possible, please steer me toward a website that lists some of the 
 external threats and opportunities facing Linux.  If possible, feel free to 
 give me your personal insights.
 
http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/news/msnw/LinuxMyths.asp

This is a page with MS's take on linux.  I think this would make a valid source
simply because if you are trying to take it to the mainstream, these are
questions that many of the mainstream market would probably have, and seeing as
how it's microsoft that's answering them, we. . .those questions would
probably need to be refuted by something a bit less partial.  As it is, the
mainstream tends to be swayed by the Evil Empire quite a bit so. . .ok i
dont know where im going with that, well i do but im too tried to figure it out
right now(:-D!  Enjoy!


--

Seth Gibson
www.mp3.com/PSM0x2710
members.tripod.com/cybernetic_thunder (Under Construction)
To paraphrase my friend stephen:
"life can be like that great ifs xscreensaver. . .random garbage goes in
and sometimes, beautiful things come out."

Re: [newbie] How to market Linux?

1999-10-20 Thread Paul Benjamin 

I have been thinking about this lately also.  Marketing of small
computers is an interesting and complex task.  Here is some stuff I
came across:

http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/JohnZedlewski/JohnZedlewski4.html
http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/JohnZedlewski/JohnZedlewski1.html

In fact I would go through the old pages in OSOpinion there are some
good thoughts in there amongst the dross.

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_10/bezroukov/index.html
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue46/al-mohssen.html
http://www.businessweek.com/cgi-bin/bwdaily_full?right=dnflash/apr1999/nf90427b.htm


The major threats are, internal politics, splits or people just
leaving because of arguments. Software patents or trade secrets from a
developers day job wind up in the kernel.  A large company could just
ignore GPL and grind up the volunteers with a long lawsuit.  How many
depositions would you want to set through before you gave up and
stopped coding for Linux?  It would be a very dirty campaign but dying
companies will do desperate things.  Microsoft Linux or MS-BSD with
all sorts of non-GPL add-ons.

Evil thoughts I should stop here.

PBen

[newbie] How to market Linux?

1999-10-20 Thread M Thompson 

Hi All,

I have been a member of this list (Mandrake Newbie) for a short while now 
and know that there are a ton of knowledgeable participants on it...I am 
taking a Marketing class as part of my MBA curriculum.  For my Marketing 
project, I chose Linux.  I have to develop a plan to Market my product 
choice (Linux).

I have already collected an extensive list of internal strengths and 
weaknesses.  I now need to develop a list of "external" threats and 
opportunities.  Specifically, I want to find some political-legal threats 
and opportunities, cultural threats and opportunities, economic threats and 
opportunities, and demographic threats and opportunities.

If possible, please steer me toward a website that lists some of the 
external threats and opportunities facing Linux.  If possible, feel free to 
give me your personal insights.

**For members of the "Mandrake Expert" list, please send a carbon-copy of 
your response to my personal E-mail address since I am not a member of the 
Mandrake Expert list.

Many thanks,
Matt
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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