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Re: Local SuSE mirror
- To: "Nadav Har'El" <nyh(at-nospam)math.technion.ac.il>
- Subject: Re: Local SuSE mirror
- From: Schlomo Schapiro <schapiro(at-nospam)mobileye.com>
- Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 14:12:28 +0200 (IST)
- Cc: Linux-Il Mailing List <linux-il(at-nospam)cs.huji.ac.il>
- In-Reply-To: <20011203091132.B12440@leeor.math.technion.ac.il>
- Sender: linux-il-bounce(at-nospam)cs.huji.ac.il
Hi,
SuSE has a strong position in the German (and European) market for the
following reasons (my personal understanding, nothing official):
- Very good localization (German, French, Spanish)
- Pedantic distro (as opposed to all kind of small "oversights" in RH
setup for non-US configuration)
- really large software selection on the CDs
- till 6.x relatively cheap
- localized phone & email support
- And, last but not least: It's a German distro and Germans of course like
to buy German (just like we buy blue-white etc)
And: There where several other German distros that are now more or less
dead (the most famous beeing DLD).
FYI,
Schlomo
On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 03, 2001, Schlomo Schapiro wrote about "Re: Local SuSE mirror":
> > 1) Israel is very RedHat centric (we are soooo American !), therefore
> > there are not so many (almost NIL) people who would buy SuSE
>
> I think that SuSE has to realise three facts (at least, I think they are facts):
>
> 1. A person that installs some distribution and is relatively-satisfied with
> it, is likely to continue upgrading this distribution, rather than
> reformatting the disk and installing a different distribution.
>
> 2. A person that starts out with Linux will prefer to get a copy of their
> first distribution for free, rather than pay $130. People who can't
> find a friend to copy from or don't have a CD writer (this used to be a
> big issue, but is less of an issue now) look for the cheapest cheap-bytes
> $2-$5 like option.
>
> 3. When someone considers to buy with actual money a distribution (e.g., this
> is common in the business arena, where time is also money), they usually
> prefer to get the distribution they already know and like.
>
> So as long as SuSE continue their no-official-and-latest-free-distribution
> policy, I'd say that they have no chance of large market penetration. That
> is, unless they have some other major strong point, such as hypothetically
> having much better Hebrew support than other distributions.
>
> I once used Slackware, and moved to Redhat when I saw Slackware was slacking
> (pun intended :)). At no point did I ever consider SuSE...
>
> Does anybody know why they have a large market penetration in Europe? Did
> they have better German support than other distributions, or what?
>
> > Situation in Cyprus or Poland is not much better than here. It's just our
> > bad luck that we got an "Israeli" SuSE importer.
>
> This is so silly - to bind themselves to one importer in the days where
> shipping a CD from abroad is only about $5... The first distribution I
> ever bought (as opposed to downloading for free) was Redhat 6.1, which
> I bought from cheapbytes - I got 4 copies, at 20 shekels each (including
> shipment and everything). No wonder people hesitate paying $130 (500 shekels!)
> for SuSE...
>
>
--
Schlomo Schapiro
Senior System Administrator
MobilEye Vision Technologies Ltd.
24 Mishol Hadkalim St., Jerusalem, Israel
Telephone: + 972-2-586-6989 Ext. 131
Mobile: + 972-55-767898
Fax: + 972-2-586-7720
email: schapiro@mobileye.com
WWW: http://www.mobileye.com
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