On Sunday 31 Oct 2010 17:39:58 Marc Paré wrote: > > Re: retail sales. > > However, we do have to be careful not to alienate users who will later > find out that the distro is a free download. They would need some kind > of great value for their money .. as you said support package; clipart; > manual etc. This would obviously require creating a worldwide helpdesk > system. I am not quite sure if this would satisfy this user who would > have paid at the retail level even with all of the perks.
Not if you advertise the fact, added value is the key. A lot of people want the book. OpeSUSE is free as well, the openslx (http://www.open-slx.de) costs.. about $NZ100. with that you get manual and 3 months support from Novell > > If you consider the amount of dollars that TDF/LibO would have provide > worldwide to print manuals and press DVD's and this as often as the > major update to the distro, it may be worthwhile instead to mount more > creative style campaigns such as paying OEM's to print the TDF/LibO logo > with short offer of the download of the free software; a sticker banner > that users could stick on their brand new box with the LibO site address > and download instructions; something that looks like an on-line dating > service "Call me and we can get together over a nice cup of LibO" etc. > This may be a better way or an additional way of creating user and brand > awareness. There is no incentive to the OEM however, to do it properly and how do you track how many of these he's done. Sorry but paying OEMs to do this without a method of tracking it is crazy. That would expose the Foundation to huge costs with no benefit. The risk analysis is bad. Also it still doesn't fix the margin issue for the retailer and you rig it so that there is no cost to the foundation by getting someone like OpenSLX to develop the packaging and content. their return comes from sales, they pay the foundation a fee based on sales. No setup or ongoing cost to the foundation. Sure it means that the fee will be small compared to the Sales price but it removes the setup cost issue. In fact I would probably put it out to tender. They get advertising on the website as the "official supplier" and the foundation and the documentation producers get a small share of revenue. Simple and low risk. Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Open Technologies) -- E-mail to [email protected] for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
