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Linux Case Study Project At Linux International
porkrind writes: "Linux International is launching a program designed to show all the different areas where Linux is used. It's the case study project. We figure this is a good place to start on our road to marketing Linux. What do you guys think about Linux vendors pooling resources via LI to launch marketing campaigns for Linux? In the end, whatever we come up with, we want to be used by all Linux communities: business, development, advocacy, et al."
All I can say is if we're relying on this company to do the PR necessary for Linux to take over the world, we'd better prepare for a mighty long battle. That is the plainest, lamest, almost-Front-Page-inest looking web site I've ever seen for a supposed PR group. I'm mortified to think about what kind of advertising collateral they put out.
This has to be one of the larger reasons Microsoft is doing so well: they shovel money into advertising. Joe Sixpack sees the huge two-page spreads advertising Microsoft's five-nines reliability, and thinks, "Hmmm, must be reliable." The ads are gorgeous, they're everywhere, and you're driven to think the company must be doing a lot of things right in order to afford that kind of advertising. After all, this isn't like a dot-com that blew out an entire year's ad budget on a single Super Bowl spot: Microsoft spends more on ads than most companies make in revenue.
Linux, on the other hand, gets a lot of press, but not the picture type. Linux reviews or articles tend to be long, wordy affairs, not quick glamorous ads, and thus people's eyes glaze over.
Continental's in-flight magazine had a great article on Linux last month. I fly a lot, so I made it a point to ask a couple of my co-passengers if they'd read the article. It was a unanimous "No." Why? Because articles about computers are boring to them.
But they can't help but see Microsoft's fast, easy-to-digest ads. (And yes, I asked.)
Someone's going to pipe up and respond that Linux isn't ready for end users. That's correct, but it doesn't matter, because end users aren't going to ASK for it. End users routinely ask me when they can get upgraded to Win2k, even though they have no idea what the difference is (or why I won't put it on their P300 laptop with 64mb ram.)
Good advertising generates demand. No advertising doesn't. Bad advertising generates repulsion. (Think sock puppet.) So with that in mind, I'm horrified by the Linux International website, because it's even worse than no advertising at all.
What's your damage, Heather?
Seriously, I can sum up many of the different markets for linux:
1. Businesses that have a specific IT goal in mind and don't need a large corporation to set these goals for them.
2. Geeky, pimply youths who like a 'flexible' operating system. (Not intended to flame, since I used to fit this category)
3. Geeky, conservative older men (yes, men) who like a 'flexible' operating system (Not intended to flame, since I currently fit this).
4. Developers who have specific goals in mind for hardware systems and don't need a large corporation to set these goals for them.
5. Those who use Linux and don't understand what it is. This is a direct result of #4 and #1 and a good example is Tivo owners.
I think it's apparent that companies often blindly follow what large corporations sell them. Thus, I conclude that the biggest potential market for Linux is to have a large corporation start marketing Linux solutions (IBM?).
Actually, I can further summarize as follows:
1. Those who need a flexible OS.
2. Those who need a cheap OS.
3. Those who enjoy playing with their OS.
4. Those who enjoy a 'free as in speech' operating system are in a considerable minority. I don't intend this to Flame, I wish it weren't true, but I think it is.
Did I miss anything?
Keeping
When linux was young and hopping around in the excitement of its youth, there were many bold dreams and brave ideas. People talked of it replacing windows and leading to a revolutionary new world. Due to the large statistical numbers of programmers, marketers, companies involved, the movement has stabilized a lot.
/., from the tone and content, I wonder how many newbies actually see these things.
At this point, no matter of marketing is going to make much difference. The direction has already been set - linux as a server OS for scripters and hackers, windows as a gui for ordinary users. Sure, you get the fanatics talking about how Joe Sixpack uses linux to teach his kids, but those are the priests preaching to the choir. I've seen even hardcore linux users generally have a windows partition - at least I did, for gaming and writing resumes.
Anyway, the point is - each OS has its strengths and builds momentum in its areas. Linux is good for servers, and excels there. Is marketing needed to highlight that point further? Doubt it. Will marketing make families switch to linux to use email and store their family photos? Doubt it.
Basically, the battle has stabilized. The fight is over servers. In that area, I don't see how marketing like this is going to help.
And one more thing - generally, these articles tend to say the things people already know. When I see these "convert the newbies" articles on
In any case, business decisions are made by managers after reading crap from Gartner and IDC. This doesn't make any difference. Realistically, the target audience is purchasing managers. will they read these "success stories" on the Linux International site and say - "Wow, that's impressive, I didn't know linux was so good. I will now install linux and try it out."
Come on...people at that level already know this shit. They don't need to be fed baby food. From what I've seen, linux marketing works best by word of mouth from enthusiastic users - not by propaganda sites/articles.
w/m
At some point in the last few years it seems as though I went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and when I came back, Linux was a hotbed of corporate activity. What on Earth happened?
The whole point of Linux was never commercial success or brand-name recognition, it was to provide a high-quality operating system under a free license. Back in those days we didn't care about whether or not we could come up with a case study of success stories in order to drum up more corporate users, hell the corporate users were geeks hidden in darkened corners.
Why should we care that a bunch of greedy corporate suits want to promote Linux as if it's their baby? To be quite frank, I find all this corporatism an affront to the ideals that RMS stands for, and it's not why I starting using Linux in the first place. Software should be free, not exploited for the bottom line.
At this rate I expect to see "Bullet Proof Linux", "Fortune 500 Linux" and a whole host of other business-friendly distributions. Corel was bad enough, this sort of thing with its "Collaborative Marketing Programs" is worse.
Linux is not about money, it's about freedom. Don't let the corporations take it away from us.