Re: SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Jan Wildeboer]

I do have a problem with painting other community distributions as 
competition. Yes, we all care about usage etc, but I would never (and have 
never) called it competition.

Competition leads to market share discussions, which in case of freely 
available community distributions is simply the wrong language to use.

IMHO distributions don't "compete" in the typical market sense. It is more a

way of differentiation, focus and target audience.

Once we compete, we will try to transport the notion of differentiation 
which will not serve the goal of upstream focusing.

This is why I personally do not like the Novell OOo edition - it is 
perceived as a fork, which hurts all.

I would prefer if we stop using the term competition.

Yes, I know this could become a flamewar. I just wanted to point out one of 
the core differences between commercial marketing and community marketing. 
Let's not mix them too much.

As always, I might be wrong.

Jan

  _____

From: marketing-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org 
<marketing-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
To: For discussions about marketing and expanding the Fedora user base 
<marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
Sent: Thu Jun 17 11:45:44 2010
Subject: Re: SWOT - Comparative Analysis




2010/6/17 Sean DALY <sdaly.be(a)gmail.com&gt;


Nelson, it's great that you are doing this. At Sugar Labs I've been
carrying it around in my head for a year. I was recently persuaded
that this was not the best approach :-) that it was worth the risk to
publish our strategy including SWOT analysis. I'll be doing that soon.



If my work does help you, please feel free to use it and I'm available to 
help with concepts if you wish.
As for sharing the SWOT, you should actually shared your lower level 
strategic documents, such as SWOT, the availability of such shows commitment 
and might attract new investors.




The SL marketing strategy, targeted at teachers (with our limited
means - no advertising budget, so heavy emphasis on PR) is based upon
taking share from the market leader for desktops and netbooks, MS
Windows, by offering an alternative better suited for the education
sector, and particularly in a market (K-6) where the market leading
proprietary offer is weak.


My concern here is that usually market share leaders are everything except 
weak ;) proprietary or not.



We feel that it is natural to compare
GNU/Linux distros in a competitive analysis, but that greater strides
can be achieved by trying to woo teachers from Windows to "other" - in
our case Sugar over GNU/Linux. We struggle against two major barriers
- the unfamiliarity barrier and the installation barrier, both of
which are daunting for nontechie teachers.


I've never tried Sugar, but I've seen some screenshots, and to be honest, 
you guys are doing a great job on the visual identity of Sugar. That's a 
step of differentiation that few dare to give, and honestly I believe you 
are doing it the right way.

As for users and install... most people can't even install windows from a 
normal DVD. For a standalone isntalation, it's probably easier to install 
Linux than just Windows... There are fields in which no one is betting at 
the moment that probably would help you achieving that goal ;) I'll let go a 
quick swift example:

* Are they aware on how a Linux Filesystem is organized ? (This will break a 
lot of barriers, understanding the concepts behind /proc /dev /home /usr... 
and so on. There is no C:! PANIC!



Sugar on a Stick is our
approach to lowering these two barriers; "does not touch the hard
disk" is one of our central claims. "Boots most anything, runs under
Windows and OSX with virtualization" is another - we know that
classrooms often have old and mismatched hardware, and teachers little
or no say in education IT purchases. Our hope is that teachers will
first see that another way is possible, and from there overcome the
installation barrier.

All that said, if the core target for Fedora is potential
contributors, attacking Windows may not make sense - it may indeed be
preferable to spotlight Fedora compared to other distros.



On a personal remark to this... Why compare to other distro's and in why 
grounds will we be making such comparisons ?

My point with the comparison is simple... To demonstrate the real effect of 
'segmentation' and 'positioning' which are two concepts that I believe
some 
people really don't understand. Through a comparison it will be easy to see 
such.

I think that to demonstrate the real face of Fedora we should compare it to 
real competitors, this will highlight the true strengths of Fedora, and in 
some ways also the weaknesses, which of course will be at some point reduced 
by the fact of our user base targets.

As a remark, I would also like to leave a note that for most of the media 
approaches of Sugar, I can say your efforts are being taken to a good port. 
I hope everything goes ok... as for the teachers... I would try to 
understand their basic needs... I would recommend something for you to do, 
if not done already before...

Focus Group > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_group

This sort of research might help and it does not require expensive 
budgets... in fact you can even approach a school and use it as a pilot for 
this. I'm pretty sure most schools would help and many teachers would 
probably be happy to participate in this. There is actually no need for much 
technical knowledge to run a focus group as in a way it's mainly supported 
by common sense... and it actually should not be technical at all.

My advice would be to gather 10/12 teachers for hour and half / 2 hours and 
have them talking and discussing the subject and the things they would be 
looking for in a product such as Sugar.

nelson



Sean
Sugar Labs Marketing Coordinator



On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 5:12 PM, nelson marques <nmo.marques(a)gmail.com&gt; 
wrote:
>  Hi,
>
>   For SWOT (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/SWOT) and specially to
>  comparative Analysis
>  (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/SWOT#Comparative_Analysis) I 
>  need
>  a couple of guidelines, for which I will not decide upon, since I'm not 
>  the
>  most qualified person to engage or set on stone those.
>
>   I've proposed on the layout the following comparative analysis:
>
>   - Fedora and Ubuntu
>   - Fedora and openSuSE
>   - Fedora and Debian
>   - Fedora and Slackware
>   - Fedora and Arch Linux
>
>
>   To perform this, I'm going to cover 2 things from the marketing
>  perspective:
>   1. Marketing Mix
>   2. Communication Mix
>
>   This 2 points I can manage well and there won't be much trouble, but I
>  would like to place also some more information on this, something we can
>  translate into charts or graphs and that on the end we can actually 
>  combine
>  them all.
>
>   I was thinking on the following:
>
>   > Ease of Installation (rated in scale, 1-10);
>   > Out of the Box install success in common hardware (mainstream hardware)
>   > Out of the Box security;
>   > Average Time of Installation;
>   > Boot time (power on to GDM login);
>
>   Now, what more should we use to complete it? Factors we can measure in a
>  scale from 1-10 and that are relevant in therms of comparison to another
>  distros, any more suggestions?
>
>  --
>  nelson marques
>  nmo.marques(a)gmail.com
>  
>  -- 
>  marketing mailing list
>  marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>  
--
marketing mailing list
marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing





-- 
nelson marques
nmo.marques(a)gmail.com

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Luke Slater]

On 17 June 2010 17:45, Jan Wildeboer <jwildebo(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  I do have a problem with painting other community distributions as
>  competition. Yes, we all care about usage etc, but I would never (and have
>  never) called it competition.
>
>  Competition leads to market share discussions, which in case of freely
>  available community distributions is simply the wrong language to use.
>
>  IMHO distributions don't "compete" in the typical market sense. It is more
> a
>  way of differentiation, focus and target audience.
>
>  Once we compete, we will try to transport the notion of differentiation
>  which will not serve the goal of upstream focusing.
>
>  This is why I personally do not like the Novell OOo edition - it is
>  perceived as a fork, which hurts all.
>
>  I would prefer if we stop using the term competition.
>
>  Yes, I know this could become a flamewar. I just wanted to point out one of
>  the core differences between commercial marketing and community marketing.
>  Let's not mix them too much.
>
>  As always, I might be wrong.
>
>  Jan 
We practice Open Marketing[1]. We are positive and instead of battling
our fellow distributions we strive to serve our target audience well.

[1] - http://opensource.com/business/10/5/open-marketing-what-does-it-really-mean



-- 
Luke Slater
:O)

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Robyn Bergeron]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 9:50 AM, Luke Slater <tinmachin3(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On 17 June 2010 17:45, Jan Wildeboer <jwildebo(a)redhat.com&gt;
> wrote:
> > I do have a problem with painting other community distributions as
> > competition. Yes, we all care about usage etc, but I would never (and have
> > never) called it competition.
> >
> > Competition leads to market share discussions, which in case of freely
> > available community distributions is simply the wrong language to use.
> >
> > IMHO distributions don't "compete" in the typical market sense. It is
> more a
> > way of differentiation, focus and target audience.
> >
> > Once we compete, we will try to transport the notion of differentiation
> > which will not serve the goal of upstream focusing.
> >
> > This is why I personally do not like the Novell OOo edition - it is
> > perceived as a fork, which hurts all.
> >
> > I would prefer if we stop using the term competition.
> >
> > Yes, I know this could become a flamewar. I just wanted to point out one of
> > the core differences between commercial marketing and community marketing.
> > Let's not mix them too much.
> >
> > As always, I might be wrong.
> >
> > Jan
>
>  We practice Open Marketing[1]. We are positive and instead of battling
>  our fellow distributions we strive to serve our target audience well.
>
>  [1] - http://opensource.com/business/10/5/open-marketing-what-does-it-really-mean
>  
And a big +1 and round of applause to you folks for doing so.

Honestly, I look at our SWOT and what the openSUSE folks have done and
I see so many areas where we we could really synchronize efforts -
particularly when I look at things like market sizing and penetration,
talking about the wider OS ecosystem (Linux/$UNIX variants v. Apple v.
MS).  Areas where we all collectively benefit from consistent
marketing messaging.

I really think that - among the distros - we have tremendous
opportunities to all work together, while, of course, each retaining
our own individual features that differentiate the distros from one
another.  There's no reason that Open Marketing cannot work similarly
to the fashion that, say, the general development part of the Linux
community works - collectively at a higher level upstream to solve
problems and join efforts in some areas which affect all of us, and
then working in our own distro communities on our own efforts.

I realize what I'm saying here is kind of a big nebulous undefined
"thing" - but I really have believed for a long time that there is no
reason why we couldn't - or shouldn't be - working together in many
areas.

And if anyone's interested in that, by all means - let's take it to a
new thread and talk about it :)

I'd also just like to note that I think it's awesome(!!!) that the
openSUSE folks (and probably others as well) are watching and
commenting on what Fedora Marketing is up to - Andreas, do you have a
similar list on your side?

-Robyn




>  --
>  Luke Slater
>  :O)
>  --
>  marketing mailing list
>  marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Andreas Jaeger]

On Thursday 17 June 2010 19:14:18 Robyn Bergeron wrote:
>  I'd also just like to note that I think it's awesome(!!!)
> that the
>  openSUSE folks (and probably others as well) are watching and
>  commenting on what Fedora Marketing is up to - Andreas, do you have a
>  similar list on your side? 
Thanks, Robyn!

There's the opensuse-marketing mailing list (http://lists.opensuse.org 
gives details about subscriptions and access to the archives), details 
about the openSUSE marketing are available via 
http://en.opensuse.org/Marketing_Team
We're right now kind of bootstrapping (again) the marketing team...

I'm very open to work together with other community distributions, so if 
any of you have concrete ideas, please get in touch,

Andreas
-- 
 Andreas Jaeger, Program Manager openSUSE,  aj(a){novell.com,opensuse.org}
  Twitter: jaegerandi | Identica: jaegerandi
   SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)
    Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
     GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F  FED1 389A 563C C272 A126

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Nelson Marques]

2010/6/18 Andreas Jaeger <aj(a)novell.com&gt;

>  On Thursday 17 June 2010 19:14:18 Robyn Bergeron wrote:
>  > I'd also just like to note that I think it's awesome(!!!) that the
>  > openSUSE folks (and probably others as well) are watching and
>  > commenting on what Fedora Marketing is up to - Andreas, do you have a
>  > similar list on your side?
>
>  Thanks, Robyn!
>
>  There's the opensuse-marketing mailing list (http://lists.opensuse.org
>  gives details about subscriptions and access to the archives), details
>  about the openSUSE marketing are available via
>  http://en.opensuse.org/Marketing_Team
>  We're right now kind of bootstrapping (again) the marketing team...
>
>  I'm very open to work together with other community distributions, so if
>  any of you have concrete ideas, please get in touch,
>  

I hope we can all cooperate together to bring higher potential to Linux
notoriety.




>  Andreas
>  --
>   Andreas Jaeger, Program Manager openSUSE,  aj(a){novell.com,opensuse.org}
>   Twitter: jaegerandi | Identica: jaegerandi
>    SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)
>     Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
>      GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F  FED1 389A 563C C272 A126
>
>  --
>  marketing mailing list
>  marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>  


-- 
nelson marques
nmo.marques(a)gmail.com

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Joerg Simon]

Am 17.06.2010 18:45, schrieb Jan Wildeboer:
>  I do have a problem with painting other community distributions as
>  competition. Yes, we all care about usage etc, but I would never (and
>  have never) called it competition. 
big +1 from me

-- 
Joerg (kital) Simon
jsimon(a)fedoraproject.org
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JoergSimon
http://kitall.blogspot.com
Key Fingerprint:
3691 0989 2DCA 58A2 8D1F 2CAC C823 558E 5B5B 5688

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Truong Anh Tuan]

----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Joerg Simon" <jsimon(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  To: "For discussions about marketing and expanding the Fedora user base"
> <marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 11:53:36 PM
>  Subject: Re: SWOT - Comparative Analysis
>  Am 17.06.2010 18:45, schrieb Jan Wildeboer:
>  > I do have a problem with painting other community distributions as
>  > competition. Yes, we all care about usage etc, but I would never
>  > (and
>  > have never) called it competition.
>  
>  big +1 from me 
Another +1.

Kind regards, 
Tuan

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Sean DALY]

At Sugar Labs my approach to this is: our competition is proprietary
(Flash on Windows for example), while cooperation with other FOSS
projects will raise all boats and advance the cause of software
freedom.

Put another way: combined desktop marketshare of GNU/Linux is around
2%, so there's certainly enough work to do competing with the other
98% while not expending energy dragging down free software advocates.

What  would like to see is a meeting of the marketing minds from
different FOSS projects. Marketing gets a bad rap from engineers,
changing that mindset in our communities is a major challenge.

Sean


On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 6:45 PM, Jan Wildeboer <jwildebo(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  I do have a problem with painting other community distributions as
>  competition. Yes, we all care about usage etc, but I would never (and have
>  never) called it competition.
>
>  Competition leads to market share discussions, which in case of freely
>  available community distributions is simply the wrong language to use.
>
>  IMHO distributions don't "compete" in the typical market sense. It is more
> a
>  way of differentiation, focus and target audience.
>
>  Once we compete, we will try to transport the notion of differentiation
>  which will not serve the goal of upstream focusing.
>
>  This is why I personally do not like the Novell OOo edition - it is
>  perceived as a fork, which hurts all.
>
>  I would prefer if we stop using the term competition.
>
>  Yes, I know this could become a flamewar. I just wanted to point out one of
>  the core differences between commercial marketing and community marketing.
>  Let's not mix them too much.
>
>  As always, I might be wrong.
>
>  Jan
>  ________________________________
>  From: marketing-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  <marketing-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  To: For discussions about marketing and expanding the Fedora user base
>  <marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  Sent: Thu Jun 17 11:45:44 2010
>  Subject: Re: SWOT - Comparative Analysis
>
>
>
>  2010/6/17 Sean DALY <sdaly.be(a)gmail.com&gt;
> >
> > Nelson, it's great that you are doing this. At Sugar Labs I've been
> > carrying it around in my head for a year. I was recently persuaded
> > that this was not the best approach :-) that it was worth the risk to
> > publish our strategy including SWOT analysis. I'll be doing that soon.
>
>  If my work does help you, please feel free to use it and I'm available to
>  help with concepts if you wish.
>  As for sharing the SWOT, you should actually shared your lower level
>  strategic documents, such as SWOT, the availability of such shows commitment
>  and might attract new investors.
>
>
> >
> > The SL marketing strategy, targeted at teachers (with our limited
> > means - no advertising budget, so heavy emphasis on PR) is based upon
> > taking share from the market leader for desktops and netbooks, MS
> > Windows, by offering an alternative better suited for the education
> > sector, and particularly in a market (K-6) where the market leading
> > proprietary offer is weak.
>
>  My concern here is that usually market share leaders are everything except
>  weak ;) proprietary or not.
>
>
> >
> > We feel that it is natural to compare
> > GNU/Linux distros in a competitive analysis, but that greater strides
> > can be achieved by trying to woo teachers from Windows to "other" - in
> > our case Sugar over GNU/Linux. We struggle against two major barriers
> > - the unfamiliarity barrier and the installation barrier, both of
> > which are daunting for nontechie teachers.
>
>  I've never tried Sugar, but I've seen some screenshots, and to be honest,
>  you guys are doing a great job on the visual identity of Sugar. That's a
>  step of differentiation that few dare to give, and honestly I believe you
>  are doing it the right way.
>
>  As for users and install... most people can't even install windows from a
>  normal DVD. For a standalone isntalation, it's probably easier to install
>  Linux than just Windows... There are fields in which no one is betting at
>  the moment that probably would help you achieving that goal ;) I'll let go a
>  quick swift example:
>
>  * Are they aware on how a Linux Filesystem is organized ? (This will break a
>  lot of barriers, understanding the concepts behind /proc /dev /home /usr...
>  and so on. There is no C:! PANIC!
>
>
> >
> > Sugar on a Stick is our
> > approach to lowering these two barriers; "does not touch the hard
> > disk" is one of our central claims. "Boots most anything, runs under
> > Windows and OSX with virtualization" is another - we know that
> > classrooms often have old and mismatched hardware, and teachers little
> > or no say in education IT purchases. Our hope is that teachers will
> > first see that another way is possible, and from there overcome the
> > installation barrier.
> >
> > All that said, if the core target for Fedora is potential
> > contributors, attacking Windows may not make sense - it may indeed be
> > preferable to spotlight Fedora compared to other distros.
>
>  On a personal remark to this... Why compare to other distro's and in why
>  grounds will we be making such comparisons ?
>
>  My point with the comparison is simple... To demonstrate the real effect of
>  'segmentation' and 'positioning' which are two concepts that I believe
> some
>  people really don't understand. Through a comparison it will be easy to see
>  such.
>
>  I think that to demonstrate the real face of Fedora we should compare it to
>  real competitors, this will highlight the true strengths of Fedora, and in
>  some ways also the weaknesses, which of course will be at some point reduced
>  by the fact of our user base targets.
>
>  As a remark, I would also like to leave a note that for most of the media
>  approaches of Sugar, I can say your efforts are being taken to a good port.
>  I hope everything goes ok... as for the teachers... I would try to
>  understand their basic needs... I would recommend something for you to do,
>  if not done already before...
>
>  Focus Group > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_group
>
>  This sort of research might help and it does not require expensive
>  budgets... in fact you can even approach a school and use it as a pilot for
>  this. I'm pretty sure most schools would help and many teachers would
>  probably be happy to participate in this. There is actually no need for much
>  technical knowledge to run a focus group as in a way it's mainly supported
>  by common sense... and it actually should not be technical at all.
>
>  My advice would be to gather 10/12 teachers for hour and half / 2 hours and
>  have them talking and discussing the subject and the things they would be
>  looking for in a product such as Sugar.
>
>  nelson
>
> >
> > Sean
> > Sugar Labs Marketing Coordinator
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 5:12 PM, nelson marques <nmo.marques(a)gmail.com&gt;
> > wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > >  For SWOT (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/SWOT) and specially
> > > to
> > > comparative Analysis
> > > (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/SWOT#Comparative_Analysis) I
> > > need
> > > a couple of guidelines, for which I will not decide upon, since I'm not
> > > the
> > > most qualified person to engage or set on stone those.
> > >
> > >  I've proposed on the layout the following comparative analysis:
> > >
> > >  - Fedora and Ubuntu
> > >  - Fedora and openSuSE
> > >  - Fedora and Debian
> > >  - Fedora and Slackware
> > >  - Fedora and Arch Linux
> > >
> > >
> > >  To perform this, I'm going to cover 2 things from the marketing
> > > perspective:
> > >  1. Marketing Mix
> > >  2. Communication Mix
> > >
> > >  This 2 points I can manage well and there won't be much trouble, but I
> > > would like to place also some more information on this, something we can
> > > translate into charts or graphs and that on the end we can actually
> > > combine
> > > them all.
> > >
> > >  I was thinking on the following:
> > >
> > >  > Ease of Installation (rated in scale, 1-10);
> > >  > Out of the Box install success in common hardware (mainstream
> > > hardware)
> > >  > Out of the Box security;
> > >  > Average Time of Installation;
> > >  > Boot time (power on to GDM login);
> > >
> > >  Now, what more should we use to complete it? Factors we can measure in
> > > a
> > > scale from 1-10 and that are relevant in therms of comparison to another
> > > distros, any more suggestions?
> > >
> > > --
> > > nelson marques
> > > nmo.marques(a)gmail.com
> > >
> > > --
> > > marketing mailing list
> > > marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> > > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
> > >
> > --
> > marketing mailing list
> > marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>
>
>
>  --
>  nelson marques
>  nmo.marques(a)gmail.com
>
>  --
>  marketing mailing list
>  marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Nelson Marques]

Commenting all in one stroke:

1. Competition > ok I will try not to write it and I apologise beforehand if
it pops out again. I'll try to keep the concept only into my mind.

2. Open Marketing > Nice concept, it does has a couple of flaws and i do
disagree with a couple of things on the article mentioned. Not to go
technical, but if one tries to dig up in academical papers the therm
'Marketing Concept', there a zillion of definitions for it, a sad one was
chosen to illustrate it. But it's a nice concept, and like most things in
FOSS, it completly out of the box if we consider industry as a standard.

3. Cooperation > This is something I trully believe, but at my eyes this
will bring many problems accross projects. Cooperation between distro's
already exists I believe, and in many points it can be reinforced. Following
Robyn idea, could be nice to see openSUSE and Fedora working together in
shared objectives.

4. Me, myself and I > Like I said before, I haven't come from a FOSS
culture, neither I can honestly understand it... For me it was always a tool
to accomplish a task. I disagree in many things, but most arguments will
vanish when crossed with the operational results that Fedora can show... In
fact, FOSS has tools that if were correctly used in many corporate
environment they would be outstanding. I can't sync my head to work against
concepts that will be present in most of my professional life, all I can do
is to minimize their impact on communities like this one.

A thought... many would probably heard the expression:

 "Split to conquer" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It's something I believe trully in, at least in a corporate environment, on
FOSS that has absolutly no meaning... because the true strength is actually
in union. Only this tears down half of my world... so in future if I use
wording as 'competition' or any other therm, please don't take it as a
separatist speech or anything liek that... because on the back there's a
couple of concepts that make me see it that way. It's not an agression to
the community, and please if it happens, try to read in a different way.




-- 
nelson marques
nmo.marques(a)gmail.com

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Robyn Bergeron]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 10:18 AM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  At Sugar Labs my approach to this is: our competition is proprietary
>  (Flash on Windows for example), while cooperation with other FOSS
>  projects will raise all boats and advance the cause of software
>  freedom.
>
>  Put another way: combined desktop marketshare of GNU/Linux is around
>  2%, so there's certainly enough work to do competing with the other
>  98% while not expending energy dragging down free software advocates.
>
>  What  would like to see is a meeting of the marketing minds from
>  different FOSS projects. Marketing gets a bad rap from engineers,
>  changing that mindset in our communities is a major challenge. 
I'll give a thumbs-up to that idea.  :) I wonder if there are any
upcoming events where we might all be where we could do a BoF or
something to that effect, at least as a starting point?

>  Sean
>
>
>  On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 6:45 PM, Jan Wildeboer <jwildebo(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > I do have a problem with painting other community distributions as
> > competition. Yes, we all care about usage etc, but I would never (and have
> > never) called it competition.
> >
> > Competition leads to market share discussions, which in case of freely
> > available community distributions is simply the wrong language to use.
> >
> > IMHO distributions don't "compete" in the typical market sense. It is
> more a
> > way of differentiation, focus and target audience.
> >
> > Once we compete, we will try to transport the notion of differentiation
> > which will not serve the goal of upstream focusing.
> >
> > This is why I personally do not like the Novell OOo edition - it is
> > perceived as a fork, which hurts all.
> >
> > I would prefer if we stop using the term competition.
> >
> > Yes, I know this could become a flamewar. I just wanted to point out one of
> > the core differences between commercial marketing and community marketing.
> > Let's not mix them too much.
> >
> > As always, I might be wrong.
> >
> > Jan
> > ________________________________
> > From: marketing-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> > <marketing-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
> > To: For discussions about marketing and expanding the Fedora user base
> > <marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
> > Sent: Thu Jun 17 11:45:44 2010
> > Subject: Re: SWOT - Comparative Analysis
> >
> >
> >
> > 2010/6/17 Sean DALY <sdaly.be(a)gmail.com&gt;
> >>
> >> Nelson, it's great that you are doing this. At Sugar Labs I've been
> >> carrying it around in my head for a year. I was recently persuaded
> >> that this was not the best approach :-) that it was worth the risk to
> >> publish our strategy including SWOT analysis. I'll be doing that soon.
> >
> > If my work does help you, please feel free to use it and I'm available to
> > help with concepts if you wish.
> > As for sharing the SWOT, you should actually shared your lower level
> > strategic documents, such as SWOT, the availability of such shows commitment
> > and might attract new investors.
> >
> >
> >>
> >> The SL marketing strategy, targeted at teachers (with our limited
> >> means - no advertising budget, so heavy emphasis on PR) is based upon
> >> taking share from the market leader for desktops and netbooks, MS
> >> Windows, by offering an alternative better suited for the education
> >> sector, and particularly in a market (K-6) where the market leading
> >> proprietary offer is weak.
> >
> > My concern here is that usually market share leaders are everything except
> > weak ;) proprietary or not.
> >
> >
> >>
> >> We feel that it is natural to compare
> >> GNU/Linux distros in a competitive analysis, but that greater strides
> >> can be achieved by trying to woo teachers from Windows to "other" - in
> >> our case Sugar over GNU/Linux. We struggle against two major barriers
> >> - the unfamiliarity barrier and the installation barrier, both of
> >> which are daunting for nontechie teachers.
> >
> > I've never tried Sugar, but I've seen some screenshots, and to be honest,
> > you guys are doing a great job on the visual identity of Sugar. That's a
> > step of differentiation that few dare to give, and honestly I believe you
> > are doing it the right way.
> >
> > As for users and install... most people can't even install windows from a
> > normal DVD. For a standalone isntalation, it's probably easier to install
> > Linux than just Windows... There are fields in which no one is betting at
> > the moment that probably would help you achieving that goal ;) I'll let go a
> > quick swift example:
> >
> > * Are they aware on how a Linux Filesystem is organized ? (This will break a
> > lot of barriers, understanding the concepts behind /proc /dev /home /usr...
> > and so on. There is no C:! PANIC!
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Sugar on a Stick is our
> >> approach to lowering these two barriers; "does not touch the hard
> >> disk" is one of our central claims. "Boots most anything, runs under
> >> Windows and OSX with virtualization" is another - we know that
> >> classrooms often have old and mismatched hardware, and teachers little
> >> or no say in education IT purchases. Our hope is that teachers will
> >> first see that another way is possible, and from there overcome the
> >> installation barrier.
> >>
> >> All that said, if the core target for Fedora is potential
> >> contributors, attacking Windows may not make sense - it may indeed be
> >> preferable to spotlight Fedora compared to other distros.
> >
> > On a personal remark to this... Why compare to other distro's and in why
> > grounds will we be making such comparisons ?
> >
> > My point with the comparison is simple... To demonstrate the real effect of
> > 'segmentation' and 'positioning' which are two concepts that I
> believe some
> > people really don't understand. Through a comparison it will be easy to see
> > such.
> >
> > I think that to demonstrate the real face of Fedora we should compare it to
> > real competitors, this will highlight the true strengths of Fedora, and in
> > some ways also the weaknesses, which of course will be at some point reduced
> > by the fact of our user base targets.
> >
> > As a remark, I would also like to leave a note that for most of the media
> > approaches of Sugar, I can say your efforts are being taken to a good port.
> > I hope everything goes ok... as for the teachers... I would try to
> > understand their basic needs... I would recommend something for you to do,
> > if not done already before...
> >
> > Focus Group > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_group
> >
> > This sort of research might help and it does not require expensive
> > budgets... in fact you can even approach a school and use it as a pilot for
> > this. I'm pretty sure most schools would help and many teachers would
> > probably be happy to participate in this. There is actually no need for much
> > technical knowledge to run a focus group as in a way it's mainly supported
> > by common sense... and it actually should not be technical at all.
> >
> > My advice would be to gather 10/12 teachers for hour and half / 2 hours and
> > have them talking and discussing the subject and the things they would be
> > looking for in a product such as Sugar.
> >
> > nelson
> >
> >>
> >> Sean
> >> Sugar Labs Marketing Coordinator
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 5:12 PM, nelson marques <nmo.marques(a)gmail.com&gt;
> >> wrote:
> >> > Hi,
> >> >
> >> >  For SWOT (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/SWOT) and specially
> >> > to
> >> > comparative Analysis
> >> > (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/SWOT#Comparative_Analysis) I
> >> > need
> >> > a couple of guidelines, for which I will not decide upon, since I'm not
> >> > the
> >> > most qualified person to engage or set on stone those.
> >> >
> >> >  I've proposed on the layout the following comparative analysis:
> >> >
> >> >  - Fedora and Ubuntu
> >> >  - Fedora and openSuSE
> >> >  - Fedora and Debian
> >> >  - Fedora and Slackware
> >> >  - Fedora and Arch Linux
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >  To perform this, I'm going to cover 2 things from the marketing
> >> > perspective:
> >> >  1. Marketing Mix
> >> >  2. Communication Mix
> >> >
> >> >  This 2 points I can manage well and there won't be much trouble, but I
> >> > would like to place also some more information on this, something we can
> >> > translate into charts or graphs and that on the end we can actually
> >> > combine
> >> > them all.
> >> >
> >> >  I was thinking on the following:
> >> >
> >> >  > Ease of Installation (rated in scale, 1-10);
> >> >  > Out of the Box install success in common hardware (mainstream
> >> > hardware)
> >> >  > Out of the Box security;
> >> >  > Average Time of Installation;
> >> >  > Boot time (power on to GDM login);
> >> >
> >> >  Now, what more should we use to complete it? Factors we can measure in
> >> > a
> >> > scale from 1-10 and that are relevant in therms of comparison to another
> >> > distros, any more suggestions?
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > nelson marques
> >> > nmo.marques(a)gmail.com
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > marketing mailing list
> >> > marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> >> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
> >> >
> >> --
> >> marketing mailing list
> >> marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> >> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > nelson marques
> > nmo.marques(a)gmail.com
> >
> > --
> > marketing mailing list
> > marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
> >
>  --
>  marketing mailing list
>  marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Robyn Bergeron
<robyn.bergeron(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  I'll give a thumbs-up to that idea.  :) I wonder if there are any
>  upcoming events where we might all be where we could do a BoF or
>  something to that effect, at least as a starting point? 
OSCON? LinuxCon? Ohio LinuxFest?

Any/all? GNOME marketing would also be involved, I'm sure.

Happy to help on any of those...

Best,

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier <jzb(a)zonker.net&gt;
About: http://www.dissociatedpress.net/about/

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Larry Cafiero]

We already have a BoF scheduled for OSCON, but nothing in particular planned
for it.

Larry Cafiero

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
<xonker(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote:

>  On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Robyn Bergeron
>  <robyn.bergeron(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  >
>  > I'll give a thumbs-up to that idea.  :) I wonder if there are any
>  > upcoming events where we might all be where we could do a BoF or
>  > something to that effect, at least as a starting point?
>
>  OSCON? LinuxCon? Ohio LinuxFest?
>
>  Any/all? GNOME marketing would also be involved, I'm sure.
>
>  Happy to help on any of those...
>
>  Best,
>
>  Zonker
>  --
>  Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier <jzb(a)zonker.net&gt;
>  About: http://www.dissociatedpress.net/about/
>  --
>  marketing mailing list
>  marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[John Babich]

Although I have not been active lately due to $DAYJOB issues, I am
very much interested in promoting Fedora.

I just read the SWOT entry, liked it, but saw a few typos which I
fixed, so that the content would be considered with less distractions
(at least for me, typos are a real distraction).

Also, there is no credit on the photo.  Do we have the proper
permission? We don't want any legal hassles messing up the wiki.

John Babich, PMP

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Nelson Marques]

 Dear John,



2010/6/18 John Babich <jmbuser.fedora(a)gmail.com&gt;

>  Although I have not been active lately due to $DAYJOB issues, I am
>  very much interested in promoting Fedora.
>
>  I just read the SWOT entry, liked it, but saw a few typos which I
>  fixed, so that the content would be considered with less distractions
>  (at least for me, typos are a real distraction).
>
>  
Non-native english speaker.


>  Also, there is no credit on the photo.  Do we have the proper
>  permission? We don't want any legal hassles messing up the wiki.
>  
The foto was taken from wikipedia, I assume the licences are compatible.


>  John Babich, PMP
>  --
>  marketing mailing list
>  marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>  


-- 
nelson marques
nmo.marques(a)gmail.com

SWOT - Comparative Analysis

[Andreas Jaeger]

On Thursday 17 June 2010 18:45:08 Jan Wildeboer wrote:
>  I do have a problem with painting other community distributions as 
>  competition. Yes, we all care about usage etc, but I would never (and
>  have  never) called it competition.
>  [...] 
If you use the business definitions for doing e.g. SWOT, it fits into 
competition.  But I share you feelings completely, I called it sometimes 
"friendly competition" in lack of a better word.  Competition sounds like 
enemy - and that's not how I'd like to see other community distributions,

Andreas
-- 
 Andreas Jaeger, Program Manager openSUSE,  aj(a){novell.com,opensuse.org}
  Twitter: jaegerandi | Identica: jaegerandi
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