Hi, On Tuesday 24 June 2008, Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC) wrote:
Hi all,
OpenSuSE 11.0 has reached maturity and has gone GM, and as a result has been released onto the download mirrors. Boxed versions are still not available however, unless they are on pre-order. Something in the marketing is wrong as if the software is release it should be available in all forms.
Why must a person who is supporting the OpenSuSE distro by buying a boxed version have to wait longer for it than those who can download it? We need to make a difference regarding countries. In EMEA and especially german speaking countries first boxes arrived at release day at customer's side. As production happens in Germany and North America is pretty far away the shipment is delayed through shipment itself plus customs.
For 11.0 we see the fatest turn around time for production and delivery of physical boxes. Unless we don't let downlaod customers wait for another week or so it is impossible to ship at release date in certain countries to customers. BTW: I'm oppose delaying release day.
The software has gone public and yet some of the public cannot access it, and I speak for those who might want boxed sets and who have no distributor in their country i.e. South Africa, as well as pitiful line speeds. Here we see budget and chicken egg issues. Boxes are currently available in EMEA, with a strong focus on Germany and in North America. Through shop.novell.com they are available kind of worldwide with the downside of ridiculous high cost for shipping. Setting up a retail channel e.g. for South Africa is costly and as of today its not justified through demand. FYI, prior to the openSUSE.org project with its free download we produced localised boxes for Italy, Spain and France. But due to low demand we needed to pull out of this markets again.
Best Michael
When are the boxed sets going to be available, not on pre-order, but as a live order as I have seen nothing on the announcements list ?
Regards Hylton
-- 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