On Wednesday 28 July 2010 20:58:07 Bruno Friedmann wrote:
So time to start the first message ..
Welcome ;-)
Just to add one point for us, we also have what is needed to make a brilliant server in our distribution. Unbuntu need another cd to start it, and you loose the klinky gui ... for server, just the ncurses debian installer . They don't make any effort in those.
We have "in my opinion" the best multi-purpose distribution on the market. It has been the case over the years, try keeping that. It's what openSUSE are now!
We have lot's of work to make it better, polished, more useful. That's why we can try day by day user by user to convince them to contribute, making wiki article, reporting bug, trying to learn something, and transmit it to other.
We offer choices, at install time, at usage time, in contribution forms. No one except debian offer this !
True, this is a strenght of openSUSE. However, from a marketing pov it is not very easy to sell. Ubuntu, as was said, has managed to position themselves as a Gnome based desktop leader. That is a strong and easy message. Saying you do everything will be perceived you do a lot but nothing particularly well. So there should be more focus. BTW this also benefits development - of course it should be open enough to let everyone do what they want but at the same time having a common goal, story, focus - it helps development. So that's why I think the strategic discussion going on is important, and we really need to finish it properly: there must be a clear message coming out of it. We must have a clear direction, and some of our wide focus will (and has to be) lost there. That is both good and bad - the bad is that some people might feel left out, but the good is that we will gain focus and new contributors.
We constantly innovate (obs,moblin->meego,susestudio,wiki rebirth) but we also have to finish those hype project, they are our marketing force, the brilliant thing we can show to the world of news,dig,rss,twit ...
Yep, these things must be advertised. And again - focus. We must create a common story, a 30 sec elevator pitch which explains how these hang together and what makes them so important to us.
With a open full of choice distribution, we can see in future a new market for people packaging it in a way a segment's market want it ( only desktop, no question at install, pure gnome, with those hyper hype application on it) on susestudio. When people will see the potential they can have, I hope the rest will follow.
I'm just afraid people aren't that smart... Those days people have a 10 sec attention span - you need focus focus focus for that.
In the meantime, in the backyard, there's those "olds" hackers, administrators, developers who use openSUSE because it's rocks, can do all what they need. the way they need.
We should obviously keep catering to them at some level. Ubuntu does that by relying on their debian foundations, btw.
I would never follow the trend about "all those people who need a desktop to communicate enjoy video on youtube" All of them are just consumers. You know what consumers just consume, and we don't sell openSUSE. We need real engaged people on it. Let that consumers consuming marketing,sales,support resources of our concurrents.
Agreed.
You know what, we're really great, and we can only rejoice for the future !
woouah, just start typing a quick reply :-) There's always to much energy in a first message.
;-)
Have fun.
and hugs! Jos -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org