into electronic streams flowing thru the cosmos On Wednesday 26 April 2006 4:38 pm, mlist@safenet-inc.com wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Peter Van Lone [mailto:petervl@gmail.com]
[...]
well first:
I would say that since SUSE is the worlds #2 enterrpise distro, the large customers are out there. It's just a numbers game. If your company chooses not to find where they live and pursue them, then it is either poor judgement or poor marketing analysis or teh result of a strategic decision. Why ask us?
Cuz, while many of the people on this list are hobbyist and individual/personal users (and thus in no position to respond), perhaps SOME are actually working for sizeable companies that actually make significant use of SUSE (assuming that such exist). I figure that persons who know something useful/helpful can answer in that way, persons who don't know or don't care can just hit "Next" in their mail reader, and persons who are bored and have nothing better to do can go to the trouble of criticizing me for asking. Something for everyone. <snip>
I don't think that it's unreasonable for at least a few people to speak up and say: "I work for Company X, and we've all/mostly moved to SUSE on the desktop, and our IT department uses SUSE enterprise servers."
Well, actually a couple of people have said things like that in the past, but they were talking about companies of three or ten people. I'm looking for companies that could afford, and be interested in the kind of products we sell, and thus be of some interest to the higher-ups.
That all assumes they may ( to be clear, it assumes they have permission from the company to ) do so.. not whether they wish to. Large companies tend to be required to restrict the chatter from employees to the general public ( non employees basically ) via contractual means. ( employee handbooks let you know that everything you ever see, hear or read, is a trade secret and you will be subject to dismissal as the least of potential punishments for disclosing any thing at all they choose , just about.) Some, do this because they have trading obligations to the stock market. These can be very nasty and result in draconian punishments for what some consider a barely noticable infraction of the rules. Consider the whole Martha Stuart mess that resulted in her being, at least at present. unable to be an officer of her company. ( "No felons may etc. " provisions of the rules of Fair Trade ) (List lawyers may feel compelled to restate that in legalese. As is painfully obvious I am not a law.... well , you know )
By the way, before some **** accuses me of trying to sell on the list, don't bother. The company is doing well and has a huge available market among Windows and Unix-using companieswith plenty of untapped share to be pursued. My only interest is - as I said earlier - I'd like to see my favorite distro get some attention, instead of RH hogging the limelight, and I'd like to run SUS at work without being questioned "shouldn't you install RH, since we support RH?" Isn't that your chance to mention that "linux is linux" and that underneath it all the ease of use , for you is Suse, because you know it best.. but it in no way can damage their RH installation etc.
Although the last bit seems superfluous I mention is because as others know, I was in a situation where the IT pple were so ignorant that they insisted my sending email from one OS to their Windows system the email would break the system. When you are dealing w/ some of the IT "pros" it is always helpful to cross all ts and dot all is. (uhm, last "word" should be read "eyes" ) <more snippage>
Um, I'm a lowly workie in a global company (small-ish, but still well over a thousand employees), and I don't work in Sales, Marketing, or Product Manglement. That is, I don't get to make decisions like that, and I absolutely don't get to make overtures to other companies on behalf of this company. Boy would I get my wrists slapped.
a.)That might be a reason for people not to answer you in detail, as well. Most large companies have well defined employee handbooks that do not allow the lowly to do any speaking which any old idiot might mistake for authoritative information that gives anyone any where an advantage of any kind. In sum, unless you are anointed by the powers that be in your company, you don't say anything on a general list that some bofh in your company might think you are not entitled, let alone qualified to say. b.) However, usually that sort of company has these "suggestion" boxes put up so an employee w/ a good idea can at least get some bored ( board?) room level person's secretary/assistant to see and possibley pass up the line for further discussion.
So I'm looking for a persuasive argument to present to those people who _do_ make such decisions and actions, to justify additional resources for testing on new-to-us platforms (SLES and the desktop SUSE) prior to each release of our products.
So you are seeking information that would be knowledge expected of sales personel in perhaps a cold call?
Kevin (paid for every SuSE release since 5.2 - anticipating 10.1)
IF you find any information on the purchasing of 10.1 I trust you would let the rest of us know , just after you order yours , of course ;-) -- j