Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 12:39:31 -0500 From: "Mike Avery" <mavery@mail.otherwhen.com> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PCWeek article by Anne Chen -- Comments Message-ID: <199905051757.MAA25014@hostigos.otherwhen.com> In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.37.19990505105712.00b51a20@localhost> References: <Pine.OSF.3.95q.990505112149.15848A-100000@poirot.umd.edu>
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On 5 May 99, at 11:05, Brett Glass wrote:
> Reframing what *FreeBSD* does is not what matters. What matters is what
> happens when the customer calls the application vendor's tech support
> line. If he or she is told that FreeBSD is not a directly and officially
> supported platform, or even has trouble getting through to the one guy in
> tech support who happened to try the product on FreeBSD, that's it.
> FreeBSD is out. IT managers are paid to be bullheaded and
> ultra-conservative in this regard.
Yeah - we've all been in battles where the lesser solution won
because the boss liked the company that sold it better. Sadly, as you
get older, you'll understand where the boss is coming from. The boss
has to defend purchase decisions to people further up the chain...
people who understand even less than the boss does.
> No Windows product vendor supported their code under Win-OS/2; we can't
> expect very many Linux product vendors to support their code under Linux
> emulation. And the vendor's technical support staff will fight such a
> thing, since it requires them to know a lot about a platform for which
> they will get few calls (a vicious cycle). And their Linux support staff
> will likely be imbued with the Linux "doctrine" and be uninterested in
> FreeBSD. You've got to get a native port AND a FreeBSD-knowledgeable
> support staff at the application vendor's site that pushes FreeBSD's
> cause. This means NUMBERS, and this in turn means evangelism.
There's a big hurdle in itself - how do you get the numbers? No, not
"how do you get people to try and use FreeBSD" but "how do you get
numbers of systems in use that the boss and developers can buy
into?" Linux had the same problem. The first step for them was the
distribution houses making money on the product. The next step, and
it was a big one in terms of credibility, was when the RedHat's, the
Caldera's, and the SuSe's got shelf space in BestBuy, OfficeDepot,
and other mass market outlets. These trends generated numbers
people could point to untis sold, not just downloaded and installed.
Installathons and university exposure are probably the best first
steps... as well as pointing out that we are more than "not Microsoft".
Mike
======================================================================
Mike Avery MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com
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A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day:
Saddam Hussein still has his job. Do you?
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