On Tue, 1 Oct 2002, Ian Lynch wrote:
None have yet made quite the same impression as the RM or Microsoft stands. (Thank goodness!). But if every stand featuring OSS could post the same map featuring all the other relevant stands - well, that might show how small mobile brainy flexible adaptable cooperative mammal-like creatures (Bother! Penguins aren't mammals!) can compete with huge lumbering dinosaurs. How many OSS stands will be at BETT? I don't think many. We certainly couldn't justify it. But we will be at the TC Trust Conference which has greater focus and more people with purchasing power and influence. In my experience its mainly people with no purchasing power who attend BETT and the statistics of being able to make cold contact with someone significant who then buys enough off you to justify the planning time, the stand and following up a lot of duff leads simply isn't good business.
We will not be exhibiting at BETT this year, for two reasons. Firstly, we already have sufficient work to do and we find that people seek us out; we do not need to actively seek out new customers. Secondly, BETT does not represent good value for money. The vast majority of BETT visitors are "just looking" and many do not have any say in their school's purchasing decisions. Attendance cannot easily be justified on a commercial basis, as we have discovered from the past two years. Floor space alone costs around 300 pounds per square metre. The smallest stands available in the main portion of the hall are around 30 square metres, so that's 9000 pounds just for the floor space. Of the four days of the exhibition, hardly anyone turns up on the Wednesday and on Saturday it's 90% trainee teachers, NQTs, classroom assistants and others who, while they may be interested, simply do not have significant influence.
This needs to be co-ordinated by someone with a stand. Or a lug, to avoid overt bias to any one distro.
Individual people visiting the show could have just as significant an influence as a large OSS stand. Visit all the various software stands and ask them if their product works on Linux. Tell them you might consider purchasing it but only if it can be made to work under Linux. Explain to them that there are companies that can help them to get their software to work under Wine, to port their software to Linux or to convert it into a platform-independent web application. Feel free to give them my name as a contact; I'm sure that there are other companies on this list that can provide a similar service. If you have a few hours/days to spare, try convincing BECTa that promoting awareness of the existence of open source software might fall under their strategic objective "To provide and promote a comprehensive national source of practical advice and support to schools, colleges and education authorities"... Michael Brown http://www.fensystems.co.uk