On Thursday 09 December 2004 5:40 pm, Ralph Katz wrote: > On 12/08/2004 08:00 PM, Paul Johnson wrote: > Looking for new customers? Looking to convert customers to Linux? > Looking for new h/w and systems integration revenue? Support > contracts? > Trying to reduce support costs to existing customers? Your > approach > will be different depending on the situation. Looking to convert customers to Linux. We want our customers to have the option of having a quality[1] distribution pre-installed or to install themselves rather than the standard, lackluster lineup of "Windows or nothing." > You say your target market is experienced windows users, how will your > business profit by introducing Debian? Our main business is hardware. We have far more hardware inventory than software inventory. Proprietary software has high overhead, and we have to make money on it somehow or there's no point in carrying it at all. Experienced users are more likely to switch to Linux as they often have become underwhelmed with the proprietary offerings for how little bang for the buck they get. We sell MS Office, but we already recommend OpenOffice.org for anybody not wanting to shell out several hundred dollars on Microsoft's offerings (and we'll even burn it to a CD for them for $9.50 if they don't want to download it themselves). We advise against Outlook, OE and IE in favor of Mozilla or Thunderbird and Firefox (again, we'll burn it to CD if they don't want to download it themselves). So if you're a Windows power user who has gotten their feet wet with those fairly core parts of any business desktop (and many home desktops) and things are already looking better than what they used to pay through the nose for, you start wondering what these geeks on a mission can do for the OS itself. The other half is that normal, everyday users are starting to feel betrayed by the whole idea of commercial software in general. Trust me, the gears really start turning in their heads when they find out they can get a quality OS on CD and sidestep the Windows Bug of the Day Club membership for less than it would cost them to get a newly released album at Wal*Mart. As far as the business is concerned, we're going to make money on it one way or another. Repair and hardware is where the money's at, not this software stuff. Software's expensive and it feels like you're just pouring money down the drain (IMHO, mostly because you are) when you pay over $100 for an OS or over $250 for an office suite per computer. People would rather put that money towards other things (like beefier hardware). > How will your "kit" be more effective for your company than a free > Ubuntu CD We'd have to burn CDs, which costs money that we wouldn't make back (much less profit). > PC magazine shrink-wrapped linux CD, or RH or Suse intro > kit? Our customers trust us more than a glued together stack of four-color glossies tossed in a comic sleeve. > If your firm supplies systems to small businesses, for example, the > last thing you'd want to do is to sell a "Debian retail kit" for $10 > that creates unrealistic demands and expectations for support. Why > create the disappointment and headaches? Well, of course. It's not like we're just going to shove Debian down everybody's throat if they've got some legacy apps that won't make the move and can't transition yet (a position my company's ironically stuck in, so it's not like we're unsympathetic to this problem), then we'll suggest they go with what they know. But when it's time to move on from Windows, we have something for them. > Alternatively, maybe you'd want to just give away a full on-site > Debian installation on one desktop in an existing customer's pool of > desktops just to demonstrate what the customer could achieve. You'll > never get that impact, for example, with a $10 retail kit. I think we've already done that in a couple instances to some success (though that was before I was with the company). I hope what I said made sense, I'm a little zonked out from the commute home from work. I'm not sure which is worse: Folks that visit Oregon and forget to leave, or that in addition to not leaving when they're done visiting, they don't bother to learn to drive in the rain, choosing to drive 20 on the freeway when everyone else is doing 55-70. We don't visit your state and overstay our welcome, please don't do it to us. 8:o) [1] There's many distros out there, but the only one we really view as being professional quality is Debian because there's more packaged for it and it's easier than Windows to maintain (if you've gotten your head around the idea that there's more out there than Windows). -- Paul Johnson baloo@ursine.dyndns.org http://ursine.dyndns.org/
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