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Marketing considrations pertaining to Linux



Recently I encountered an interesting reading in the following URL:

    http://www.rational.com/connection/books/reviews/moore/index.html
 
This Web page reviews the following books:

   Crossing the Chasm and
   Inside the Tornado

   by Geoffrey A. Moore
   (Chasm: HarperBusiness, 1991, ISBN 0-88730-717-5)
   (Tornado: HarperBusiness, 1995, ISBN 0-88730-765-5)
   reviewed by Brian Marick on October 16, 1996
 
The author's thesis is that customers of Hi-Tech products (including 
software) can be divided among the following groups:

1. Technology enthusiasts - love to play with new technologies.
2. Visionaries - agree to try and invest in new technologies to solve a 
     special problem.
3. Pragmatists - need a stable and proven product.
4. Conservatives - need an easy-to-use product.  The biggest market.
5. Old-timers - are not really customers of Hi-Tech products.  They cling 
     to their outdated products as long as possible.

My take about Linux is that at present its fans and users are technology 
enthusiasts and visionaries.  I guess that most of the Linux-IL 
participants are technology entusiasts - the ones who feel that new 
kernels are very cool, who can temporarily put up with bugs.  Others (me 
included) are the visionary type.  I personally got into Linux because I 
needed an Unix-like platform to run the open sourced coverage analysis 
software GCT (another creation of Brian Marick, by the way).  Probably 
this is another reason why I feel a bit out of place in Linux-IL - I have 
a different orientation (sic) from the majority of the group.

Why do I bother to dwell about this subject?

Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 98 and other Windows based products from
Microsoft presently serve the big market segments of the Pragmatists and
Conservatives.  In order to overcome Microsoft, a Linux distribution
geared to the needs of those segments (stable, easy to install and easy to
use by idiots) needs to exist.

Any ideas for a "killer application" which can be run under Linux but is 
highly awkward for Microsoft Windows?
Maybe a cool networked game which uses the full power of X-Windows - for 
homes with multiple personal computers and home LANs?  :-)
                                            --- Omer
                     Internet E-mail:  xlacha1@wizard.weizmann.ac.il
                                       omerz@actcom.co.il
                       WWW home page:  http://www.weizmann.ac.il/~xlacha1/
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