Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 00:33:50 -0500 (CDT) From: Jim Bryant <jbryant@argus> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: On Holy Wars, and a Plea for Peace [sorry Danny, wherever you are, but the title fits]... Message-ID: <199704170533.AAA15351@argus> In-Reply-To: <4146.861250482@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Apr 16, 97 09:14:42 pm
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In reply: > > i'll add another few items to my list from last night... > > > > 1). chop the price in half to $19.95. > > It wouldn't help. This would reduce FreeBSD to the price of the > shovelware CDs, and Walnut Creek CDROM has done quite a bit of price > experimentation here. Every CD they've discounted this steeply has > suffered a _decline_ in sales rather than what you'd expect. There is > some odd aspect of human nature which works against making things too > cheap - the product suddenly becomes equated with "junk" or something. > I frankly don't know what causes this, but it most definitely happens > and Rob Kolstad could also tell you a few things about it. When he > raised his BSD/OS prices, despite all the public outcry about what > evil nasty people they were for doing so, unit sales went UP (as, > obviously, did their profit margins). He was recently telling me that > even he didn't believe it and told the marketing department that they > were out of their trees if they thought increasing the price would > increase sales, but they convinced him to try it anyway and and lo and > behold, they were right and he was wrong! > > > 2). drop the subscription priceing, if it's cheap to begin with, > > then there is no need for a subscription rate... > > Heh. There are many reasons for having subs, the price being only one > of them. okay... i'll accept your reasoning, however absurd it may sound, it may be similar reasons that people still buy ibm [the most expensive name tag ever slapped on a cheap taiwanese box]... > > 3). keep SNAP releases as a mail-order item, keep the > > experimenters happy, but don't confuse the dweebs, er, > > We sell to distributors and end-users both. What the distributors > do with the product afterwards is their call, not ours. what do they do with them? i have yet to see a store carrying FreeBSD... > Basically, I hate to say that you're wrong on all 3 counts and taking > your advice would probably be the very very worst thing we could do. :-) at least go back and read last night's list... and you must admit... i am right about the exposure/distribution factor, maybe walnut creek needs to get some distributors serious about getting the disks out on the shelves... so far as my personal experience goes, never having seen FreeBSD at a retail store, and only once seeing them sold anywhere [WC's booth at netexpo in dallas in '95, i still have the tee-shirt], mail-order needs to be moved to a secondary marketing focus behind retail stores [comp-usa or computer city would cover a lot of ground, for starters, they sell a lot of linux].. until such a shift is made, developers will bypass FreeBSD and go for linux [ugh]... your book is a start... bundle the latest RELEASE with it on CD... but then again that would probably be a decision for the publisher to make... but the linux precedent is in this category too, actually minix was the first to do this... i've got to crash, but at least ponder my point a bit longer, the more you think about it, the more it makes sense... i would rather not see FreeBSD fall into obscurity because of bad marketing being the primary cause for the lack of serious developer support. there are a lot of supporters out there [including me], but that don't amount to a hill of beans to corporations who are only concerned with whether it's easily obtainable locally, and has a large user base. jim -- All opinions expressed are mine, if you | "I will not be pushed, stamped, think otherwise, then go jump into turbid | briefed, debriefed, indexed, or radioactive waters and yell WAHOO !!! | numbered!" - #1, "The Prisoner" jbryant@tfs.net - KC5VDJ 2M, 70cm, KPC-3+ - kc5vdj@wv0t.#neks.ks.usa.noam
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