On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 5:25 PM, PETER ROMANO <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Rob, > > Why would PC Manufacturers offer an "OPT-OUT" when they are getting marketing > $$$ to offer the "OPT-IN" ? > There are no funds for presenting OPT-OUT options on PCs that I am aware of. > That's where you local stores have to offer the advantages of 'UNINSTALLING > UNNECESSARY SOFTWARE' > and replacing it with FREE APPLICATIONS offering the same or better > productivity. >
I think manufacturers widely have the ability to sell PC's without Microsoft Office, but they rarely offer alternatives. So it is a binary, do you want Office, yes or no? OpenOffice is never part of the discussion. But there are exceptions. A few weeks ago we received a request from a small reseller in Slovenia asking about bundling OpenOffice. So it does happen, but it is not mainstream. One possible audience would be the budget, off-brand manufacturer. If they can offer a "fully loaded" PC using open source then they might have a price advantage. But I don't know that business well enough to know if that idea adds up. In practice it is possible that the supply chain management and volume of the Dell's of the world beat out any price advantage a smaller player might have by using open source. > This is a move that OpenOffice needs to explore, but I am not sure what can > be offered in the way of incentives. > > I was employed in the past by Creative Labs, Inc. I worked for the Technical > Training Department > as a Training Specialist and was also a Key Retail Account Representative. > Creative had employee discounts to present to store employees for all of the > products Creative made. > This was a help to offer incentives, as well as giveaways during training > days. > > Offering boxed copies of OpenOffice to employees at training events or store > events > could be a way to get the word out to the most educated employees of the > market. > > Getting into stores and educating sales and techs is the best way to offer > alternatives > to customers based on conversations within the store environment. Certainly we hear of Microsoft offering training to Best Buy employees on how to sell the value of Windows. In any case, this does suggest some interesting questions that we might be able to research: ==Where do users get their productivity software== 1) Provided by their employer 2) Comes pre-installed on their PC 3) Mail order 4) Purchased in retail store 5) Purchased online/electronic download Once someone already has MS Office installed, there is little incentive for the user to explore alternatives. So raising awareness before that purchase is key. > The only hold back would be the store culture. > It has to be 'permitted' as part of the culture. > > Pete... > > Peter J Romano > [email protected] > > >> Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2012 10:56:55 -0500 >> Subject: Holiday OpenOffice promotion opportunity? >> From: [email protected] >> To: [email protected] >> >> For those portions of the world that celebrate Christmas, in the next >> three weeks we're coming into a major gift-giving season. I recently >> bought a new PC as a gift for a family member. Anyone buying a new PC >> faces several questions: how much RAM, how big a hard drive, but >> also: what version of Microsoft Office to bundle? Home and School? >> Professional? Small Business? The PC vendors get a sweet deal from >> Microsoft to push Office. Although you can opt out and save $200 or >> so, the PC vendors never seem to offer or even explain that there are >> free alternatives. >> >> This is a hard nut to crack. As a free product, we're in many cases >> better for the consumer. But we can't offer the same kind of kick >> back / revenue sharing with the PC vendor that a commercial product >> can do. 10% of zero is still zero. >> >> But maybe we can have a promotion directly to the consumer, raising >> their awareness of free alternatives? >> >> >> Brainstorming >> -------------------- >> >> "OpenOffice -- our gift to the world" (too pompous?) >> >> Image of Santa's elves writing open source software >> >> New lyrics to traditional song like "Jingle Bells" (Open source, open >> source, saving you big dough. Oh what fun it is to save by using >> AOO!) >> >> "With the money I saved using Apache OpenOffice I bought a...." >> >> Could be a blog post, but a video would be even better. Could be >> reused year after year. >
