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How Not To Sell Linux Products
An anonymous reader writes "Roblimo looks at why so many Linux products fail in the marketplace, and decides it's not because Linux users want everything free, but because most products they're asked to buy are either poorly marketed or don't work well. He has some good advice for anyone trying to sell stuff to Linux users, except it really applies to *all* computer products, not just Linux." (NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.)
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Those are just the few I've interacted with recently. IBM, Sun, JBoss, and Novell are doing a very good job of supporting, marketing, and selling their Linux-based server products. So there are more and more success stories out there.
But, like the article communicates, we need a lot more to get the momentum going on Linux for the masses. Hopefully, large organizations will follow IBM's lead, and small, open-source based project will look to CodeWeavers as excellent examples. We need more of those guys!
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
Perhaps the best linux distro that i've used is a commercial one. While they also have a free version, buying it saves bandwith, and the frustration of navagating their reliativly crapy ftp
I remember being really gung ho about Linux and Open Source after trying my first distro: Mandrake 8.0. At that time, Win98SE and WinME were the dominant flavors (WinXP was just starting to come out), and I found that the Mandrake install did a better job of detecting most of my hardware than the MS install.
Eager to support the cause, I plucked down $100 to preorder the Pro version of the upcoming Mandrake distro. "Cool, I'm supporting open source. I'm doing my part," I thought, and I'd even get some of the CD's early for my pre-order. So I ordered, my credit card was charged, and day after day, week after week, no product arrived. And day after day, my emails to the company weren't answered. There were no real announcements anywhere to be seen about what was causing the delay. Finally, after a bit more than a month of this, I finally called the company at my own expense and had my order cancelled. (And even that required quite a run around, as the number listed on Mandrake's site didn't seem to be a direct number, so I had to call a few times to connect with anybody.)
And this is how they treated an eager customer. Hardly the way to treat a paying customer! I sure wouldn't want to run my business this way.
Granted, things are better now, but when your business isn't run like a business, don't expect customers to stick around. -- Paul
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
Even though there's no official support, ogg support came around and its still a great toy to hack on. having linux on your stereo is nice. i can hook my tablet up to the ethernet and http:// at it and manage playlists. waiting for laptop hds to go down in price, imagine 2x 80 gigs in single DIN head unit!
i lusted over it for years, so i'm proud to say that years after buying it im still impressed.
Would it? One of the points of newspeak is to eliminate redundancy-if you have plus, it can be applied to accentuate the negative or positive following word-minus is redundant
For example, it seems like 8 out of 10 programs on sourceforge have 'no documentation' and rely the user bringing what to the lay public would seem like "expert knowledge" to grok not only installation, but even how the features work.
Commercial products seem just as poorly documented. Having had to deal with end users for our relatively simple business, I've come to the conclusion the you have to treat every program and option that they interface with as if it where a "Name_of_Program for Dummies" book. We have to build on-line tutorials just for using FTP clients because the documentation that comes with them is so horrible as to be useless. --
Filmo The Klown
There's a reason why sendmail, samba, apache, etc. have been around so long.
They have been around because they work. Not because they are open source. Windows has been around just as long, as have tons of other commercial softwares. Ironically, many commerical products are much much easier to install and configure. And missing libraries? That's a non-issue for commercial software. All needed libraries are distributed with the software.
Unless, of course you are talking about "Linux" based commercial software. In which case you can blame Linux and the OSS world for your library troubles.
No, but your employer may be able to deduct your salary when they are donating you. Regarding you donating your personal time the IRS would probably declare your time to be a hobby. :-) Disclaimer: IANACPA.
But seriously, I donated time to the local county search and rescue team. Only physical equipment was deductible. Maybe you could get a deduction for the computer if and only if it was used only for free software. Again, IANACPA. Something interesting to look into.
Yup, I'm with the parent. It _is_ 'double-plus ungood'.
:D
Now you can mod me down for not having a sense of humour.
One of the rules was "Make it available" if you can't find it in they broke that rule now didn't they?
On that note look around a bit more. The Zaurus is a high end item and many stores (Best Buy and Circuit City) won't carry ANY high end PDA.
I've found the Zaurus in an office products store selling high end office products (the more expensive printers etc). Next to it is the most expensive Palm Os machine on the market and the most expensive HP Pocket PC. The Zaurus was the cheaper and that's saying something considering one of the devices was a Palm.
I got mine from the home shopping network of all places.
That said. It works great but I've found a flaw. The sereal IO cable sold sepretly dose not work.
We have it for using on a dial up ISP.
Basicly it's just a cable for the built in sereal port. It's a no brainner. But the dial up manager on the Zaurus won't allow you to use it.
So we went to the website and they have specal software... GREAT...
"The Dial Manager needs to run as root"
My first thought was "That is stupid" my second thought was "where are the directions on how to do that?" There are none.
I'm still working on this but I may break down and buy a CF modem.
I don't actually exist.
More like TiVo. Appliances are where (embedded) linux really shines. Look at the Linksys WPC11/WAP11, CyberGuard, and some appliances that do things on a scale not even attempted in the Windoze world, such as InterIM from Deviant Technologies, and you'll see prime examples of why Linux and other open source technologies are kicking the shiny metal ass of proprietary products.
;-) but there are so many variables involved in making a PC a Linux "product" (OS, office productivity suite, printing, sound, network browsing, etc) that it's probably the worst test imaginable.
Walmart can sell Lindows PC's, and sure, they're interesting, but let's hope that's not what people think of then they think "Linux products". The thing is, despite the candy interface, when you do run into a problem the learning curve is too long.
I've used a Linux desktop exclusively for over a year now, and I'm happy with it, but when I tried to get my wife (a former IT guru) to adopt it it was a total flop. Admittedly, Debian is not your best intro to desktop Linux
Appliances, competing in well-defined niches, are a natural for Linux and they tend to beat their closed-source competitors. THAT'S what I call a "Linux product".
-hp3
In the U.S., I don't believe you can deduct time or services as a charitable donation. It must be objects or cash. This is what I've heard, at least regarding graphic-art/advertising, that pro-bono work is undeductable, except out-of-pocket expenses. I imagine it's true in all other industries as well.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
Linux is cool and all, but seriously- developers, if their intent is to sell something, need to accept the fact that in many cases, the wheel has already been invented - to circumvent this either due to sloppiness, or even arrogance, is a surefire way to raise the ire of prospective consumers.
Let me use a couple of examples. First, there's Evolution, purported to be an Outlook killer. Generally, I like it, but there's one thing that just torques my chain every time I use it: email retrieval. For whatever contorted reason, the developers have decided that if you have eight different email accounts that you manage, you, but default, want to retrieve mail from all of them at the same time (every time), or none of them. Mozilla had it right.
Then, there's Konqueror. A nice browser - very robust. But what the HELL where they thinking when they decided that the bookmarks menu should operate like the Start menu in Windows, where instead of scrolling, it expands horizontally? I guess I can see how they might think it saves time, but it really hijacks the usefulness of the menus in general.
Both of these have been frustrating enough for me to consider alternatives. I'm not shunning the notion of innovation - but I would encourage developers to CAREFULLY consider any alteration to what have become accepted and standard methods.
i see your point but have to argue that they don't need to give it away free. i was looking for a fax server software that would include support for windows machines. i found some free/opensource and inst alled it.
i had some issues getting it to work then i noticed they had a "installer wizzard" they sold for a reletively decent price. i decided to give it a shot. bingo it all worked. i paid for the 12 user license and now i have half an office faxing any document you can print from thier windows desktop.
it isn't uncommon to see somethignlike this. i was glad to use it. it was just one more thing to validate having the linux box around. and the windows version of the software would have cost us about 5 times as much. (windows server license and software combined)
by the way it was www.fax2send.com i finally settled on. i am really happy with it.
Personally, I would add one more app - Visio. It isn't in the ballpark of the 3 apps that you have listed as far as units sold/installed, but the community of users that do have it on their desktop represent (imo) a key demographic.
Of course, I'm in that demographic, so perhaps I am biased (-: And if I thought for a single nanosecond that microsoft would port Viso to linux, I would have to also be delusional.
But should someone create a quality replacement for visio, I would migrate my company laptop to a free unix of some sort and never look back...
Pixie
don't mess with those geekgrrls
When ever you make a product for the general product it is actually fairly hard. And the hard part is not programming the application to do what it needs to do. But to program it in a way that it can be easily upgraded from one version to the next. You have to be sure that you follow good standards for the install, like ./configure; make; make install or package it as a good RPM or for any other package you need. Prevent users from going to threw the Shared Libraries Hell and if you are using some Shared Library that doesn't come with most distributions, then you need to distribute it with your product or at least provide an easy link to the product. As well providing proper documentation and being available to answer problems. The Hard part is getting good BETA Testers, Not just punks who want to be L337 and have the software before anyone else or who are looking for a freebee stable version. But people and a lot of them who will run the software threw its paces and actually try to brake the program. And do this for a long time at least for 2 or 3 months.
Many times starter companies are unaware of all the extra issues, that are needed to make applications used for the general use. A lot of time they were making custom apps for customers and installing it themselves on their system. Or they are just out or still in college trying to make it big without much experience. So they focus on the program and forget about the need for the general person to install the product. And use it as well.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Does anyone remember the fiasco with Corel's Wordperfect. I started using wordperfect before MS word was around, in the good old DOS days (sarcasm). I liked Wordperfect a lot, and stayed with it as much as I could, even through all the changes in ownership and the destructive "enhancements".
I was very excited to hear that Corel would port it to Linux. I was a little weary of the Wine hooks they said, but I would give it a try. I paid over $80 for it and what a piece of crap that was. It would constantly crash and I would always be losing data. It would sometimes crash when I tried to save, and the save would lose data or just corrupt the entire file. I finally gave up with it and bought Star Office.
Then, later when Corel gave up on Linux, I read that Corel is an example that you can't make money porting to Linux. I was so angry at reading that, since the real answer was that you can't make money porting shit to Linux. I think Corel expected the "we are doing you a favor" reaction and everyone would buy it. It actually worked with me since I did go ahead and buy it, but I wouldn't buy something else after that unless I knew it worked. I've seen Star Office previously in action, and that was why I later bought it.
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
sounds like clark connect--there is free version but the $125 US version is well worth the money.
it sure beats the hell out of the cable company's
business services package for a 1/10 of the price
ispec and ms$ vpn dynamic dns samba cups logging
mail monitoring auto update on the firewall and packages tight out the box firewall and etc. works real good on a $200 walmart which is overkill - so you spend $325 and yes you could do it yourself but if you value your time why bother it would take you 3 hrs plus to find patch compile and config and you still would not have the dns or montioring which costs a whole lot more than $125/12 i.e the software is free and the service is good
Have you checked out MS' own SMS Server and Marimba's Castanet (which is written using Java btw)
But you're not even talking about Microsoft Windows. Those are two separate applications. You've really just proved my point that Windows provides no package management, by illustrating that Microsoft sells package management as an optional product.
Today, Microsoft offers some guidelines for writing installers, which it didn't back in the 90s, but there doesn't seem to have been much effect. Windows apps that I've personally watched being installed continue to use a mishmash of Installshield, Winzip, or homegrown routines. And the fact that Microsoft still talks about "installers" and not "packages" remains a clue to what they're really offering. (To abuse CS terminolgy, the MS way is imperative rather than declarative)
(Hey, the great part about Windows installation is there's no confusion about what "package" you want to install; because every one of them is named Setup.exe!)
Are you fucking daft?
.debs are significantly different than RPMs (as are the database cache files). The whole approach is entirely different, which leads to a cohesive packaging environment for debian and not for .rpm based distros.
I said:
2) Why would anyone want to use a shitty RPM based distro or one with proprietary modifications that make it incompatible (Lindows comes to mind)?
I was refering to Lindows as one with proprietary modifications, not as an RPM based distro; if you'd learned how to read thoroughly, you'd have realized that.
And yes,
Furthermore, while lindows is 'debian based' it is not debian. That's where the "proprietary modifications" come into play, see?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The fundamental business case.
Ok, so you just bought a $50k server to run a $50k installation of, say, Oracle. You have 2500 employees and the lifespan of the beast is five years. That's $1,600 per month (not including interest). You could save $800 per month by using MySQL or PostgreSQL, which is about thirty two cents per month, per employee. Your SysAdmin/DBA, on the other hand, will cost $6-8k per month or about $2.80 per user, regardless. Say you have an application suite developed for six months (hah, six months, right) with a team of four people at the cost of your SysAdmin. That's $168,000, or $2,800 per month, or just over a buck per user per month. If that development was to equal, say, the Oracle Collaboration Suite, which would cost about $37,000 per year, that's $187,500 over the five-year term in question, or about $1.25 per user per month. Now, let's say you could get that that using OSS that would take four people a week to integrate (YEAH, RIGHT), or about $7k. You'd only save about $1/employee/month.
Now, do you as a business manager, or "solution provider" who has to deal with business managers, still care much about "free software?" The little bit of security that comes with a software maintenance agreement with a trusted vendor (deservingly or not) is often worth that extra buck as the old FUD goes: "no one was ever fired for buying IBM."