On Mon, 16 Apr 2007, Paul Nelson wrote:
I challenge you to call HP, Dell, IBM or Gateway and ask them for a quote on
a K12LTSP lab for a school. Place the call directly to their educational
sales rep.
People have a hard time using what they don't have and can't get.
Honestly, give it a try. Someone try it and report back to this list what
happens.
K12LTSP motto: It works. It's free. Duh...
And the hardest part of that to explain is...
So I've been talking with lots of folks both inside and outside the
company about this. And what I hear from the inside folks is really
interesting.
We've got a sales team that is, in fact, responsible for selling into
schools. They're called the "FED/SLED" team -- FEDeral gov't, State/Local
gov't, EDucation.
They've got a sales number to hit. I can't go into details, but suffice
to say... it's not terribly ambitious. :)
And why is that? Two reasons, it seems like:
(a) We don't have that much to sell that *clearly* targets the space.
(b) Even if we did, we don't have the manpower to sell it.
And the fact that (b) is a problem seems to prevent us from making serious
headway on (a).
So now I'm starting to believe that the way forward looks something like
this:
1. Find a way of associating the Red Hat name with worthy education
projects. Of which K12LTSP is clearly one, but there are others.
2. Build a channel. Red Hat will never be able to service schools
directly, ever -- and neither can Dell/HP/whomever, because even if
they *did* sell systems with K12LTSP built in, they wouldn't
realistically be able to service schools either.
But we *can* provide expertise to local partners who can.
Maybe we can provide strong mechanisms for giving channel partners the
ability to go sell the crap out of "a proven solution" -- which is
training for school admins, plus some low cost/high value level 2 support,
plus some other stuff that is valuable for the partners. And in my
internal discussions with Redhatters, this is now looking like a sensible
goal to shoot for: channel enablement.
But wait -- K12LTSP works, and it's free! True enough. But Red Hat has
lived in this paradox for a long time:
A lot of smart people, for some reason, just don't *trust* free.
In the big commercial markets, that's fantastic for us, and allows us to
grow a great business and subsidize further development of Linux and open
source.
But in the education market, this weird distrust of free-ness gets in the
way of changing the way computers work in schools.
My goal now: to come up with a business model that makes Red Hat *just*
enough money -- and it doesn't have to be much in the larger scheme of
things -- to push forward the one-to-one message.
I'll be at NECC. Steve, I'll see you there. I'm sure I'll be talking
first hand with a lot of you as well.
--g
--
Greg DeKoenigsberg
Community Development Manager
Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255
"To whomsoever much hath been given...
...from him much shall be asked"
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