On Tue, 2003-09-16 at 13:33, Wolfgang Bornath wrote: > John Wilson schrieb am Tue, 16 Sep 2003 12:41:03 -0700: > > > My assumption is that either the entry into bankruptcy protection > > messed up their distrubtion channels and McMillian pulled back or that > > someone just dropped the ball in North America. > > Sorry to say, but: no. > I took the freedom to forward Anne Wilson's first message in this > thread, starting with: > > > I have moved to a new thread, in the hope that someone at > > MandrakeSoft, or at least, someone in touch with MandrakeSoft, might > > see it. > > I forwarded it to Ga�l Duval, co-founder of MandrakeSoft, creator of > Mandrake Linux, responsible for communications. I hope this is > "MandrakeSoft" enough for you. > > Here's what he answered: > > <quote> > In short: > > The overall Linux retail market (all distributions) in the USA has > decreased by around 20% by year since year 2000. One of the reasons for > this decline is that most users now have access to a high-bandwitdh > access, so they prefer to download the ISOs. As a result we started to > lose money on the US retail, so we agreed to stop it with our US > distributor. > > At the same time, online services and MandrakeStore revenues are > exploding, so it's certainly a better business model than pushing just > one or two products in shelves. For instance, we sell maybe a dozen > MandrakeSoft products on Store, it would be impossible to do in the > retail. And we're thinking about selling "dematerialized products" for > download (all pack ISOs for instance), which is really a more powerful > business model. > > Anyway, if we feel that the retail market would start to grow up again, > we would certainly consider to address it again. We're also aware that > being on shelves is good for mindshare. > > Regards, > > Ga�l. > <unquote> > > I can see his point. > > wobo
Wobo, It sounds good except for one thing. In the developed world the US has less than half the broadband penetration of any other country. (Canada has about a 50% penetration, Korea 80% the US only 20%) Did the sales fall off because people downloaded, (Gael's contention.) or did it start falling off because it took 3 months after release to get it in the stores.(my observation) With 8.1 and 8.2 by the time I got my copy via retail (Both came out of a bookstore where I could special order and pay by check.) I had downloaded the first beta of the next release. 9.0 I managed to recieve after it was ordered at full price just as MDK started to offer it at a clearance price. (From MDK it took 9 weeks.) 9.1 I canceled after 3 months. I don't want to use the download version. I want to use the commercial CD's I've got them all the way back to 7.0 (lost my 6.2 and 6.1 versions.) Are people downloading to save money, or, are they downloading just to get the product. No I don't have all the data, Gael has more. But, the 20% drop in sales is consistent with the drop other software vendors and retailers are seeing across the board. My next question is. Why aren't SuSE, Red Hat, Walnut Creek (FreeBSD) Wasabi (NetBSD) and others cutting back on retail? They sell to the same demographic. Shouldn't they have similar problems? James PS thanks for forwarding the thread to him...
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