At Sugar Labs my approach to this is: our competition is proprietary (Flash on Windows for example), while cooperation with other FOSS projects will raise all boats and advance the cause of software freedom. Put another way: combined desktop marketshare of GNU/Linux is around 2%, so there's certainly enough work to do competing with the other 98% while not expending energy dragging down free software advocates. What would like to see is a meeting of the marketing minds from different FOSS projects. Marketing gets a bad rap from engineers, changing that mindset in our communities is a major challenge. Sean On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 6:45 PM, Jan Wildeboer <jwildebo@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I do have a problem with painting other community distributions as > competition. Yes, we all care about usage etc, but I would never (and have > never) called it competition. > > Competition leads to market share discussions, which in case of freely > available community distributions is simply the wrong language to use. > > IMHO distributions don't "compete" in the typical market sense. It is more a > way of differentiation, focus and target audience. > > Once we compete, we will try to transport the notion of differentiation > which will not serve the goal of upstream focusing. > > This is why I personally do not like the Novell OOo edition - it is > perceived as a fork, which hurts all. > > I would prefer if we stop using the term competition. > > Yes, I know this could become a flamewar. I just wanted to point out one of > the core differences between commercial marketing and community marketing. > Let's not mix them too much. > > As always, I might be wrong. > > Jan > ________________________________ > From: marketing-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > <marketing-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: For discussions about marketing and expanding the Fedora user base > <marketing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Thu Jun 17 11:45:44 2010 > Subject: Re: SWOT - Comparative Analysis > > > > 2010/6/17 Sean DALY <sdaly.be@xxxxxxxxx> >> >> Nelson, it's great that you are doing this. At Sugar Labs I've been >> carrying it around in my head for a year. I was recently persuaded >> that this was not the best approach :-) that it was worth the risk to >> publish our strategy including SWOT analysis. I'll be doing that soon. > > If my work does help you, please feel free to use it and I'm available to > help with concepts if you wish. > As for sharing the SWOT, you should actually shared your lower level > strategic documents, such as SWOT, the availability of such shows commitment > and might attract new investors. > > >> >> The SL marketing strategy, targeted at teachers (with our limited >> means - no advertising budget, so heavy emphasis on PR) is based upon >> taking share from the market leader for desktops and netbooks, MS >> Windows, by offering an alternative better suited for the education >> sector, and particularly in a market (K-6) where the market leading >> proprietary offer is weak. > > My concern here is that usually market share leaders are everything except > weak ;) proprietary or not. > > >> >> We feel that it is natural to compare >> GNU/Linux distros in a competitive analysis, but that greater strides >> can be achieved by trying to woo teachers from Windows to "other" - in >> our case Sugar over GNU/Linux. We struggle against two major barriers >> - the unfamiliarity barrier and the installation barrier, both of >> which are daunting for nontechie teachers. > > I've never tried Sugar, but I've seen some screenshots, and to be honest, > you guys are doing a great job on the visual identity of Sugar. That's a > step of differentiation that few dare to give, and honestly I believe you > are doing it the right way. > > As for users and install... most people can't even install windows from a > normal DVD. For a standalone isntalation, it's probably easier to install > Linux than just Windows... There are fields in which no one is betting at > the moment that probably would help you achieving that goal ;) I'll let go a > quick swift example: > > * Are they aware on how a Linux Filesystem is organized ? (This will break a > lot of barriers, understanding the concepts behind /proc /dev /home /usr... > and so on. There is no C:! PANIC! > > >> >> Sugar on a Stick is our >> approach to lowering these two barriers; "does not touch the hard >> disk" is one of our central claims. "Boots most anything, runs under >> Windows and OSX with virtualization" is another - we know that >> classrooms often have old and mismatched hardware, and teachers little >> or no say in education IT purchases. Our hope is that teachers will >> first see that another way is possible, and from there overcome the >> installation barrier. >> >> All that said, if the core target for Fedora is potential >> contributors, attacking Windows may not make sense - it may indeed be >> preferable to spotlight Fedora compared to other distros. > > On a personal remark to this... Why compare to other distro's and in why > grounds will we be making such comparisons ? > > My point with the comparison is simple... To demonstrate the real effect of > 'segmentation' and 'positioning' which are two concepts that I believe some > people really don't understand. Through a comparison it will be easy to see > such. > > I think that to demonstrate the real face of Fedora we should compare it to > real competitors, this will highlight the true strengths of Fedora, and in > some ways also the weaknesses, which of course will be at some point reduced > by the fact of our user base targets. > > As a remark, I would also like to leave a note that for most of the media > approaches of Sugar, I can say your efforts are being taken to a good port. > I hope everything goes ok... as for the teachers... I would try to > understand their basic needs... I would recommend something for you to do, > if not done already before... > > Focus Group > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_group > > This sort of research might help and it does not require expensive > budgets... in fact you can even approach a school and use it as a pilot for > this. I'm pretty sure most schools would help and many teachers would > probably be happy to participate in this. There is actually no need for much > technical knowledge to run a focus group as in a way it's mainly supported > by common sense... and it actually should not be technical at all. > > My advice would be to gather 10/12 teachers for hour and half / 2 hours and > have them talking and discussing the subject and the things they would be > looking for in a product such as Sugar. > > nelson > >> >> Sean >> Sugar Labs Marketing Coordinator >> >> >> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 5:12 PM, nelson marques <nmo.marques@xxxxxxxxx> >> wrote: >> > Hi, >> > >> > For SWOT (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/SWOT) and specially >> > to >> > comparative Analysis >> > (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/SWOT#Comparative_Analysis) I >> > need >> > a couple of guidelines, for which I will not decide upon, since I'm not >> > the >> > most qualified person to engage or set on stone those. >> > >> > I've proposed on the layout the following comparative analysis: >> > >> > - Fedora and Ubuntu >> > - Fedora and openSuSE >> > - Fedora and Debian >> > - Fedora and Slackware >> > - Fedora and Arch Linux >> > >> > >> > To perform this, I'm going to cover 2 things from the marketing >> > perspective: >> > 1. Marketing Mix >> > 2. Communication Mix >> > >> > This 2 points I can manage well and there won't be much trouble, but I >> > would like to place also some more information on this, something we can >> > translate into charts or graphs and that on the end we can actually >> > combine >> > them all. >> > >> > I was thinking on the following: >> > >> > > Ease of Installation (rated in scale, 1-10); >> > > Out of the Box install success in common hardware (mainstream >> > hardware) >> > > Out of the Box security; >> > > Average Time of Installation; >> > > Boot time (power on to GDM login); >> > >> > Now, what more should we use to complete it? Factors we can measure in >> > a >> > scale from 1-10 and that are relevant in therms of comparison to another >> > distros, any more suggestions? >> > >> > -- >> > nelson marques >> > nmo.marques@xxxxxxxxx >> > >> > -- >> > marketing mailing list >> > marketing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing >> > >> -- >> marketing mailing list >> marketing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing > > > > -- > nelson marques > nmo.marques@xxxxxxxxx > > -- > marketing mailing list > marketing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing > -- marketing mailing list marketing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
