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Desktop Linux strategies for marketplace success May 03, 2008 (2:00:00 PM)
- 11 hours, 41 minutes ago

By: Carlton Hobbs

What strategy is needed to really spread desktop Linux to average home
users? Here are some ideas that just might work.

Journalist Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols argues that

Linux businesses, for the most part, don't do marketing. I think
they're extremely foolish not to spend any money on it, but there it
is.... Like the Linux companies, many of them were sure that they
didn't need to market themselves. Like Linux companies, they thought
word of mouth was enough.... Well guess what: it's not. Without
marketing, no one from the outside looking in can tell one Linux from
another. They just see a confusing mish-mash of names, and unless
they're already really motivated, they're going to start turning off
from Linux at the very start.

I argue almost the opposite. A large part of mainstream media marketing,
advertising, and branding is a means to get name recognition at a very
superficial level. Its main targets are people who make superficial buying
decisions, and for the right products, this works. Why buy name brand
Tylenol vs. generic acetaminophen, name brand cereal, or a thousand other
identical products that come off the same assembly line but use different
packaging at different prices? From the perspective of the thrifty, the
main answers are ignorance and brand recognition.

Of course, not all marketing is to compete with effectively identical
products. Consider the American beer industry as a major marketing
powerhouse with a few similarities to the Windows vs. Linux market. The
major American breweries formulated modern beers after Prohibition to
appeal to people who didn't like the taste of beer, and as a side effect
the major brewers accepted, these beers taste bad to beer connoisseurs.
The post-Prohibition era, even to this day, retains elements of a
cartelized liquor distribution industry designed to make it difficult and
expensive to compete with the major breweries, such that there have been
no new domestic majors in decades. The rebirth of real beer in America was
through microbreweries that have small to non-existent marketing budgets.
They rely on beer connoisseurs who communicate through beer fan reviews,
word of mouth, willingness to experiment, and seeking out the minority of
stores that actually carry microbrew and local beers. Beer commercials for
microbrews about sports and sexy women would not get many beer drinkers to
seek out good beer that isn't already easy to find. Such commercials are
just for "all beer is beer" drinkers who are susceptible to brand
association marketing and herd opinion.

This doesn't mean that high-cost marketing is innately wrong or bad. It
means that if you can increase the marginal sales of your
high-profit-per-sale product to people who make quick decisions based on
brand recognition, then your marketing expenses were a good investment,
but otherwise not. Unfortunately for Linux companies, desktop Linux is a
very low profit per "sale" product that is not an impulse choice off a
shelf of interchangeable consumer goods. As Red Hat learned years ago, the
shrink-wrapped box on a store shelf will not change the current OS market.

So if word of mouth and near-zero-budget advertising are our main
prospects, then perhaps what is needed is a better person-to-person
strategy. Fortunately, there is definite room for improvement here. One
major barrier to entry is lack of Linux preinstallation, and the
occasional need for more expertise with compatibility issues. Desktop
Linux must partly resolve these challenges through its internal advantage
of strong community by strategic and expansionary networking, and by using
the big opportunity of failure to address the massive number of PCs that
people keep collecting dust, thinking they will upgrade sometime, someday.

Desktop Linux must focus on local communities for recruiting the next wave
of users and evangelists. Ubuntu has the right idea with its LoCo
initiative. However, to get really local and networked, a distro-centric
local community is not the most efficient. If local Ubuntu, Debian,
Slackware, etc. users never meet, they will forfeit great networking
opportunities. There needs to be local GNU/Linux/FOSS communities with
broad ranges of software experience, occupations, contacts, and distro
preferences. Fortunately, many already exist, and there is at least one
list where people can find groups near them. Linux promoters must
recognize face-to-face personal interaction as a primary means for
strategic growth of desktop Linux.

Local free software organizations need to be able to offer free Linux
installation and encourage people to reuse or donate computers that would
run poorly with current Windows systems. Certain groups are naturally good
targets to recruit and possibly join as recruiters themselves.
Decentralist political groups, neighborhood associations, Parent Teacher
Associations, and other educational organizations are also intelligent low
budget groups. College groups, homeschool groups, agriculture co-ops,
churches, and religious groups are all great places to find people who
have spare computers to reinvigorate or donate, or would be willing to
have a computer set to dual boot. In general, groups that depend on
donations or have small budgets are looking for ways to minimize
unnecessary costs. Some of their members would likely be radicalized when
they learn what little is required to show others how to switch to Linux.

Local free software organizations need a quick and easy tool to
communicate what the GNU/Linux OS can do. Perhaps the best method would
also serve as a means of introduction. An organization could create
business cards that provide a brief description of the local Linux group,
its Web address, and purpose. The card should be visually impressive and
colorful. They can let people know that the card itself was designed with
only free software, whether it be OpenOffice.org, gLabels, Inkscape,
Scribus, or some combination that anyone could easily get through Linux.

Is there a model for such success without advertising budgets? Ask
yourself how you heard about and started using Google. Was it through
advertising? Google became a giant because the barrier to trying a new
search engine was so low and the value quickly obvious. It was used by
almost everyone before anyone saw a Google advertisement. If Linux
advocates can do the same, then Windows will be in trouble. I don't see
how this can happen without active local free software groups that seek
out growth, and success would likely be in proportion to the efficiency of
local groups. If some are more successful than others, then the more
successful local methods could be adopted elsewhere.

All the experience and networked knowledge of local free software
cooperatives might be enough that small businesses would hire the local
groups to upgrade their computer systems to Linux for real money. Local
groups could even have contracts with particular distros that provide paid
business support to receive some of the profit. Local cooperatives would
not likely make much money, but maybe enough on occasion to purchase a few
rounds of quality microbrews to celebrate a few more people unshackled
from Goliath-soft. Very few people will get rich with Linux, but a lot of
people could be meaningfully less poor with it, and free-as-in-freedom
might actually buy the enjoyment of a few free-as-in-beers. Read in the
original layout at: http://www.linux.com/feature/134126

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"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.<
You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one."

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On Sat, 03 May 2008 20:42:38 -0400, Ruben wrote:

> Everything Linux and Open Source
> Desktop Linux strategies for marketplace success May 03, 2008 (2:00:00 PM)
> - 11 hours, 41 minutes ago

Fuck off, spammer.

Oh, wait. Is that you, ANC?


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