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Date:      Sat, 23 May 1998 02:23:32 -0700
From:      "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
To:        Mark Diekhans <markd@Grizzly.COM>
Cc:        freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD A Solution For Business 
Message-ID:  <8677.895915412@time.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 22 May 1998 20:37:13 PDT." <199805230337.UAA02883@osprey.grizzly.com> 

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> I must humbly disagree.  FreeBSD is not an alternative desktop system for a
> business environment.  No Windozes application user is going to give up Word

Why pull punches, Mark?  Let's put it even more bluntly: There is
absolutely no rationale for any Unix system to go after the desktop or
desktop application market right today, nor has there been for some
time, and anyone who thinks otherwise has either been living under a
stone for the last decade or is, pardon me, a complete and total
idiot.  That war is lost and one might just as well counsel the Iraqi
army that it'd be a really good idea to invade Kuwait again.

> This begs the question, what type of server? what niche to go after?

I think we can go after almost all of them.  The nice thing about the
marriage of a "big iron OS" with "little iron PCs", especially PCs
which are now many times more powerful than departmental minis of the
past, is that we really can address both ends of the server market
simultaneously.  We've already proven that we can handle many of the
big jobs, and the cost of a PC these days would allow even the
smallest corner grocery store to keep its inventory on one (and heck,
they probably do!).

>   o A port of Netscape enterprise server would be a plus.  Apache is

The BSDI run works great though - we use it at Walnut Creek CDROM.

>   o Clustering.  Built-in IP clustering would also help in promoting

That'd be awful nice, yeah (he looks around pointedly at the assembled
hackers, most of who back away hastily)

> On promoting FreeBSD.  Buying Jordan a couple of $1000 suits and a high limit
> gold card and sending him out to wine and dine executives is not the answer.

Not to this problem, no, though it'd certainly be the answer to a
rather dull social life!  I'd even settle for just one $1000 suit. ;-)

> P: "No problem, we have a Pentium system in the machine room that isn't being
>     used for much, lets install FreeBSD on it.  He can be showing the VP
>     in a couple of hours!"

This is right on the money - I see this all the time.  Stealth
marketing is sometimes the very best kind. :)

- Jordan

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