John-O said:
> Did you give your "sales staff" this "new sales lead" and have them
> contact that NGO and try selling your DOS based shareware? ...
> I am simply giving an example of the difficulty of a
> non-technical oriented organization using something other than M$
Sales staff here consists of two cats (sometimes three - these are
social beasts and the neighbour's is joining in from time to time),
and in terms of judging customers they are highy efficient (they tell
me reliably whom I have to like/dislike); sending them somewhere else
though is somewhat difficult.
The more so that I *know* about the enormous difficulties they would
meet. The other day I told the big boss of that organisation that they
paid a 90 per cent overbilled telephone account because of their
internal software set-up: HE JUST DID NOT CARE - that bill is paid
anyway (running costs of this NGO network is financed to 96 per cent by
the EU Commission, i.e., the taxpayer.)
Despite of the fact that this is the strongest argument I could think
of, in these times of forced "savings" thoughout all public instances.
(The only one who sensed at least some potential threat of that argument
was the lawyer of the org.: what if someone went to the Court of
Auditors with it ?)
So if even the most fundamental material rule and interest is trampeld
over by the Lemmings' draught, then this tells a lot about the doping
hormones in work there.
No wonder my sales staff don't like the idea to take that on.
Seriously: I think I stumble over kind of a (political) economy
mechanism here which is "new":
(a) Due to the basic logic of the things in IT - 0's and 1's, bytes and
all that, Boolean elementary dear Watson - there is perhaps no other
field where you can substitute hardware as easily by "gray matter", or
just by "THINK!";
(b) but to think, you need education/training/knowledge == time/learning
- I tend to call this (acquiring) "computer literacy" -;
(c) though it goes the other way round than in (a) too: by putting
"frozen" knowledge into gadgets (in IT terms, into hardware as well as
software) which do *not* need knwoledge to be used, you get three
processes:
-- 1. there's broader usabilty of these things, as more people can use
them without knowing much about how-to/why/etc.
This is the positive effect of "technological innovation";
-- 2. relevant knowledge/education/training is more and more
concentrated with those instances (firms) which produce those gadgets;
and:
-- 3. the general level of knowledge/education/training among the
users of the gadgets is lowered systematically (no need to know the
fundamentals, just some [to be repeated] conditioning to use
applications is enough).
For how much this process is actively geared, see the
<a href="http://www.netaction.org/msoft/world"> "NetAction White Paper -
>From Microsoft Word to Microsoft World: How Microsoft is Building a
Global Monopoly" by Nathan Newman.</a>
Now, based on processes (2) and (3) you can "build in" all sorts of
biases, in respect to "technological" development as well as to economic
redistribution; I think on the latter the stock exchange data for the
whole "industry" [mostly consisting rather of "services"] and its
"innovation cycles" prove my thesis.
The former is more difficult - though there *are* "positive" analogies:
the Citroen-2CV was not only a technologically "revolutionary" car but
even an economic success "against the grain", and it influenced car
development up to the present day (the German Voltswaggon was
technologically backwards, in all senses, but an even bigger commercial
success; which points to the difficulty to assess this thing - despite
the fact that there even were *very* hard facts about the hardware
conditioned death toll; Ralph Nader was quite correct).
Ok, this is perhaps a bit theortical-abstract. Practically: even with
the best arguments and the best products (intelligent software to use by
literate people with simple hardware means), my sales staff is at a
hopeless disadvantage as long as these organisation people are
"rewarded" better by (a) not "wasting" learning time and (b) getting the
higher priced gadgets - and the *much* higher, implicated costs of using
them - paid anyway: What counts for them is to output nicely-layouted
reports to the people who pay, in exactly the same manner as these, and
thus with the same gadgetry: which confirms to the payer that the piper
blows the tune.
There is *no* reflection about the systemic implications on their side.
There is *no* reflection neither on the way this mechanism is
re-inforcing precicely the North/South and social (digital) divide they
are purportedly combatting.
At best it's on these lines that I can access and could argue with these
poeple.
But commercially I'm an idiot.
(Think my sales staff despises me for that, as it has direct influence
on the quality and quantity of their food.)
But then this is not so much a commercial issue - these people are
rewarded for making expenses, not for avoiding them.
And it's even a very different story to make people in the South aware
of that mechanism - poles are between "we're too weak to do anything
about it", to "leapfrogging" into [the void of] elitist/wasteful
highest-tech use.
Way out of this misery ?
First: insist on public, open standards. Definitely a political issue.
Despite of what some people in the accountants depts. may think, ADA
(the US-"Americans with Disabilities Act") has done miracles simply by
"being there", re-inforcing those standards-that-be against the
authoritarian gimmickry of AOL/N$/M$/etc. presidents.
Second: keep alternatives - and knowledge - available, develop/maintain
them even without (immediate) commercial return.
IBM *does* continue to support its PC-DOS (despite perhaps meager, but
nevertheless steady returns). A thing like the "Cypercafe model" thread
on this very list here has an enormous potential once the bits and
pieces have come together (and most are already there) and the knowledge
of how to put them together is "decentralised".
Hmm, some marketing involved there too - who invented this nice term of
"solution integration" ? <g>
// Heimo Claasen // <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> // Brussels 1999-09-30
HomePage of ReRead - and much to read ==> http://www.inti.be/hammer
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