On Tue, 2007-04-17 at 17:30 +1000, David Ward wrote: > Hi all, > The Owner of the company has gave Linux thought and some how was tipped > over the edge recently and called a meeting with a few key staff members > hers and ..... me. > > So I am now doing a demo of Ubuntu in the Friday morning sales meeting! > > > Any tips or points for catching the attention of mostly IT 'dumb' ales > staff ? I am thinking Beryl/Compiz, the mention of no spyware and > viruses and the backing of big name companies like Dell, IBM and Novell. > > Any advice welcome; really want to do the best for Linux and open source > here and get it into this company.
The big one for lots of people is virii, but it's really hard to convince them that they don't need Mr.Norton. If you just blandly tell them that virus isn't a problem, it won't sink in. If you can convert time/effort for virus protection into dollars, that might help. Lots of windows users are convinced that the reason all the virus's affect Windows is because of the 95% factor. Last figures I read were - 64000 Windows viruses, 40 Mac viruses, 20 Linux viruses. I have no idea if it's right, but it sounds good and it blows apart the 95% factor ;-) You could try spelling out all the well publicised virii that you were able to happily not worry about. A lot will depend on what they use the computers for: web apps? database? fileserving? Word processing? If you are personally using your machine for everything the company needs, then just go through your typical day in front of them. There's nothing like seeing it work. Another nice touch is to do an #apt-get install XXXX - think of something cute and useful. It can be pretty impressive. Pointy Heads worry about support. Hey, when was the last time you tried to get support from Microsoft!!! List several reputable linux support companies in Sydney. It isn't hard to do. I often impress people by telling them that Google runs on linux. That has a pretty good wow(tm) factor. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
