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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: [REMINDER] KDE 4.0 Milestones
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () kde ! org>
Date:       2007-05-08 15:19:55
Message-ID: 200705080920.02837.aseigo () kde ! org
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On Tuesday 08 May 2007, jos poortvliet wrote:
> Seeing the persona's (and remembering the presentation Ellen gave), the
> sentence:
> "To avoid misunderstandings: KDE will still be an option for educational,
> governmental or large enterprise usage – but it won't be the main focus
> when developing the default desktop. KDE as a configurable framework can
> still be adjusted to meet the needs of any other user base."
>
> imho doesn't do KDE justice. It might even be bad for KDE to explicitly say
> that the corporate, educational and governmetnal desktops are't it's focus,
> and it has to be adjusted to meet their needs. We even have a poster which

this isn't a marketing piece, it's a set of guidelines for UI development. as 
you note, the persona's include educational and business people that show 
that they are still a focus point.

but let's be honest here: it's the progressive and forward thinking 
businesses, governments, etc that make up our user base. they are forward 
thinking either because they are progressive or because they have little 
other choice than to innovate solutions that meet their needs (localization, 
security, monetary, sovereignty, etc).

if you look at the graph that is directly above the paragraph you quote, you 
will see that it's the standard market penetration maturity bit. we're 
entering the early majority phase right now, and that's where kde4 will 
certainly play.

to ignore that because it sounds better to go after "the enterprise" (whatever 
that actually means) will most likely result in chasing after users that 
aren't going to be using kde and missing out on satisfying those who are 
using it today and are most likely to switch in the next 2-5 years.

so if we accept the reality that our big opportunity points are SMB/SME 
environments, the technically minded, etc ... this all makes a whole lot of 
sense.

it's very true that kde can be put to very effective use in the large 
corporate environments, among others. we have the installations to prove 
that. but there's a difference between "it can" and "it's where we do best"; 
betwen "it can" and "that's where our growth is"; between "it can" and "that 
is what we design primarily for".

yes, it's not easy to focus on areas of market because that by definition 
means being willing to focus less on other areas. but trying to cover all 
bases is pretty unrealistic. that said, there are a few projects that i'm 
personally aware of that are bringing features to kde that can only be 
described as "enterprise".

this is about focus, not about either/or.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)

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