Moin, On Thursday 27 August 2009 04:51:59 John Lange wrote:
On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 17:14 -0500, Bryen M Yunashko wrote:
When we answer "Why?" we make the mistake of falling into a technical litany. Average Joe doesn't grasp those technical points. Those issues never even popped into their mind.
-snip-
The only thing putting a dent in MS market share is Apple's iPod (and now iPhone). The "coolness" surrounding those products has lead to a "dramatic" upswing in Mac sales. Dramatic in this case means, 7% of all users are now Mac users (up from 5%).
So, even with all the positive publicity that Apple gets combined with Microsoft's "un-cool factor", the best Apple can do is a 2% gain in 5(?) years.
And that's just as they do hardware & software plus they investing tons of money into usability that makes Mac just work for Average Joe.
The message we have to focus on is how this will do the job they want to do.
That isn't good enough. You have to answer "how will this do the job MUCH BETTER than what I have now?"
From the perspective of the average desktop user, Linux has never
answered that question. And given the state of gaming and multi-media, it probably never will.
At best we've answered the question "how can I do most of what I used to do but cheaper?" But in reality Linux isn't even cheaper since the average desktop user gets Windows "free" with their PC purchase.
And that's the most challenging point. Average Joe doesn't care about the operating system or the licence as long the computer fulfill their tasks. As far as there is no simple way to purchase a computer pre-installed with Linux there's no way to reach a reasonable part of Average Joe's running around. Unfortunately, we're in the middle of a chicken egg problem. M
So where does that leave us?
So like Zonker basically says, forget about MS. Focus on us and the good things we do!
Exactly. Or focus on enjoying your own computing experience and who cares what everyone else is doing?
I told everyone that relied on me for technical support that "I don't do Windows". Either switch to SUSE or find someone else. All except one found someone else but at least I can proudly say that the percentage of users I support who are using Linux has jumped to 100%! Now THAT is good marketing spin! ;)
Besides, if Linux ever became popular then I'd have to switch to something even less popular than Linux is right now...
That reminds me, where did I put those OpenBSD floppies?
-- John Lange http://www.johnlange.ca
-- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org