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Re: Marketing angle (was: RFC: Office suite)



On Sat, 11 Aug 2001, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote:

> > I'll try, but do keep in mind this list does not represent the average
> > joe user.
>
> Yes, but lots of people here are sys admins - and who people ask for
> software solutions? the sys admins ;)

from my sad experiance, people don't listen to the sysadmins. the
decision makers make decisions of a who different set of non technical
considerations that admins (and unix admins are further away from
relating to the demands of joe user) think are necessary.

> Your point is a good one. There isn't any competitor because lets face it:
> Dagesh was what I call CrapWare (lost 430 pages document of a project I did -

Dagesh was an excercise in bad management and had many other problems. I
know some of the inside story. in any case, I don't think I would trust
any wordproc with such huge documents anyway.

> either), Alef-Bet didn't want to get into the Windows market (feared
> of MS?),

or were dead before win 3.11 was out, AFAIR.

> QText was nice while it lasted - so MS got to a very easy point to
> penetrate to the market..

QText did have a windows version (is Dvir software still alive?) and you
forget KalBo-PC which was a rewrite of KolBo for the Apple 2 which was a
Hebrew version of AppleWorks. amazing product, I have produced hundreds
of pages of works for school on it (apple //c days). somehow it also
died.

the key word is open standards, and RTF is not good enough, you need
doc compatablity, which is not open ofcourse, so everyone fold up.

> One of the points I have talked to them and suggested (and looks
> like it will be so) is that you get 3 versions in 1 CD: Windows
> version, Linux version, and Mac OS X version. You buy it - youget
> the other versions for free.

if you pay per seat, what does it matter what's on the CD? you still
need to install it only on one machine.

> > the rendering engine is the big clincher. I don't care about Hebrew
> > interface myself, but I do suppose the average Israeli user will be more
> > insistant.
>
> Ahh, I see.

yeah. personally it drives me nuts to look in Hebrew menues (especially
when right-justified) for action names with weird translations, but
Office allows it.

> > the question you have to stop and ask yourself is what your goal is.
> > - more linux systems in the market.
> More linuxes - the better ;)

why? I can think of only two things, and that's better hardware support
and better/more software. but it's a chicken and egg problem.

you can't convince a company like Hancom to add Hebrew under that goal
definition. they won't be interested. so we'll keep that as a secondary
goal.

> > - a better linux environment for current users.
> Yes, I think that is a good point - but it's a tough to convince a user who
> always got everything under GPL to go out and spend $100 on a commercial
> softwrae. Thats why there will be a free 30 days trial version downloadable..

well, if it's good, it's worth it. imagine an office saving thousands on
software by not having to buy server license and stations, and a cheper
office suit. but for that, its clients have to be able to send and
recieve .doc files.

> > M$, they are here to sell licenses. they need help flooding the market
> > with a cheap version that many places places would like to buy, and then
> > a moderately-priced package people will want to upgrade to.
>
> I couldn't agree more ;)

and not every small company can afford such a risk.


-- 
His own worst enemy
Ira Abramov


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