Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2407 mails)

[purpleshirt@xxxxxxxxxxx (Purple Shirt)]

Once again you seem not to understand what the goal was. People on the list 
suddenly had this HUGE interest in VMware as soon as Michael said, 
"Professional comes with VMware license". There is also many users on here 
who buy every single release of SuSE. Add 1 and 1 together and get 2.

SuSE users may want a bundled deal. SuSE users still want every SuSE release 
and stay up to date. They also want VMware. Combine the two and you have 
what I described as SuSE Expert. Hence, this is why SuSE may want to look 
into this. Maybe this is a potential product scheme.

Is it complicating things? Yes, but I am sure IBM has way more complicated 
contracts =) And yes you have to keep track but maybe it is worth it. You 
certainely will raise a lot of eye brows and gain users. I said twice that 
details have to be worked out to make this financially probable. Maybe the 
100 dollar target is way off.

Then you made a comment that VMware can just easily sell their licenses 
themselves. Oh if business was so easy. If that were true we wouldn't have a 
thread of 200 emails about how SuSE creates now two versions. Apparently 
software doesn't sell itself so easy. Also I may like to point out that 
Microsoft didn't get to where they are by selling Windows on the shelves all 
by itself. They bundled it with everything they could possibly bundle it 
with. When I explained the SuSE Expert version and put the price target to 
100 dollars and said there was a SuSE+VMware deal I meant that SuSE bundles 
their product and then channels some of the profits back to VMware. Of 
course they can't sell a VMware license and not pay VMware. I am pretty 
certain this will sell more licenses of VMware than VMware could possibly 
ever sell by themselves for the price of 299. America is the land of bundles 
it seems. You can't walk a block without seeing some bundled deal. McDonalds 
and Britney Spears, George Foreman and grills, get a hub and two nics, SuSE 
and VMware, Linux und Musik (remember that one? =), ....

And people buy this bundled stuff. Time seems to have proven that.

I think the essential question is: Do you want SuSE to remain forever where 
they are, selling a single Linux product, or go out there enthusiastically 
and make some serious business with people offering all kinds of product 
ranges? If it was me I would want to evolve into some strong business 
machine.

I guess I have another fact to prove my theory. SuSE now comes with 
Reiserfs. There seems to be no money involved?! But people seem to love the 
opportunity to use this file system and I bet simply by including it it is 
an advantage point to keep a SuSE user a SuSE user and not have him go to 
some other distro. hence there is money involved. Every single reason which 
keep a user a SuSe user means money for SuSE. VMware may be such a reason.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with VMware in any way and have never used 
VMware.

mk

>From: Derek Fountain <fountai@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: SuSE English <suse-linux-e@xxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [SLE] SuSE 7 Deluxe now vmware talk
>Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 13:08:51 +0100
>
> > SuSE could include a 3-year VMware license with their professional 
>distro
> > and sell it at 120 dollars. Reason for this is that people repurchase 
>the
> >
> > A user buys 6 versions of SuSe pro and one version of vmware. Cost.
> > 6*70+299=720 dollars total
> >
> > A user buys 6 versions of SuSE pro with full vmware lincense included. 
>Cost.
> > 6*120=720 dollars total
>
>This strikes me as unworkable drivel. You're asking people
>to sign subscription contracts to tie them to software they
>might not want to use in 6 months time, let alone 3 years
>time. You're asking SuSE to put in place some mechanism for
>keeping track of these contracts, and starting international
>legal actions when people all over the world start
>defaulting. If Vmware want to offer their product on a
>credit basis - !!spread the cost over 3 years with 3 easy
>payments of just 100 dollars!! - that's their business. Why
>should SuSE offer it and further complicate their product
>range?
>
>I can see that there is a business case for selling
>expensive machines with SuSE preinstalled (SuSE have
>partnered IBM for this); I can see the business case for
>selling expensive software with a distro (Redhat have
>partnered Oracle for this, I don't know what SuSE have got
>in mind); I can't see a business case for taking one piece
>of moderately inexpensive software (Vmware is pretty cheap
>for home users) and working out some tricky scheme for
>spreading the cost. I also can't see a business case for
>Vmware to hand over a big chunk of the Vmware licence fee to
>SuSE when they can just as easily sell the licences
>themselves.
>
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