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List:       kde-promo
Subject:    Re: [kde-promo] Competitor Review
From:       Tom Chance <lists () tomchance ! org ! uk>
Date:       2004-12-12 22:45:45
Message-ID: 200412122245.45461.lists () tomchance ! org ! uk
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On Sunday 12 Dec 2004 22:32, Steven William Giacomelli wrote:
> On December 12, 2004 08:57 am, Henrique Pinto wrote:
> > Em Dom 12 Dez 2004 08:17, Tom Chance escreveu:
> > > Let's not have this document fall into saying nonsense like freedom
> > > doesn't matter. It does, otherwise we'd all be working on proprietary
> > > software. So I wouldn't start suggesting that freedom is important to
> > > GNOME and that's a competitivge disadvantage, or that freedom isn't
> > > important to KDE.
> > 
> > I understood what Steven said in another way. In my understanding, most
> > people simply don't care whether KDE is free software or not, perhaps
> > because they simply don't know what free software is. Therefore, we
> > should tell people how great KDE is, and then tell them that KDE is only
> > that great because it is developed in an open and free way. In short:
> > telling someone she should use KDE because it is free won't really
> > work...
> 
> In the business of marketing you have to look at who your target market is
> (target users) and respond to their needs and wants -- you don't tell them
> what they want -- of course then there is a question --
> 
> Do they want it/need it but dont know they do yet -- in which case you are
> creating primary demand (ie a product category/type of product -- ie
> instead of selling the virtues of one cell phone over another you sell the
> virtues of a cell phone and link it with a brand) (secondary demand is the
> other kind and its when you sell your product over another product -- the
> focus is on differentiation not on value of product category)
> 
> The question than is raised -- are we trying to create primary demand for a
> free desktop or secondary demand and compete directly against JDS, GNOME,
> CDE etc in are marketing focus\message?
> 
> For the maximum growth we need to look at converting people to the free
> desktop -- but is that something KDE should do or an organization like GNU
> or OSI should do? And of course the inherent problem with that is that KDE
> isnt a standalone product like windows -- it needs the X11/kernel stack --
> so then should there be cooperative marketing initiatives with distros?

This, for me, hits the nail on the head as regards the "competitive" issue. In 
my opinion, KDE is trying to create a primary demand for a free desktop 
together with GNOME, Xorg, freedesktop.org, the Mozilla Foundation, and every 
other Free Software project that has the resources to market itself, as well 
as every distributor who ships a single piece of KDE software.

We're doing that at the same time as creating secondary demand on technical 
and cost grounds. That is to say that we are probably marketing to companies 
and individuals with arguments they understand, and all the while creating 
primary demand by explaining where the technical and financial values come 
from.

Furthermore, our success in marketing KDE - the KDE on Windows issue aside for 
the moment - depends upon the success of our fellow Free Software projects. 
KDE isn't going to be very attractive without a good kernel, a good compiler, 
a good print server, a good graphical server, etc.

Given these two thoughts, it seems obvious to me that we should at the least 
emphasise the competitive advantage that collaboration with these other 
parties gives us, and if possible we should join with them in our promotion 
activities, whilst differentiating ourselves on a feature basis from 
competitors within that field. All of this already happens to an extent :)

Regards,
Tom
 
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