> What should be the balance between open source traditions vs promoting
> individual SI companies through listing their customers and resources or
> linking to their web sites?
Indeed, here lies a big issue. It's an open-source project with pure goals --
with a solution set that is "bet your business" -- with a mandate to not overly
support any specific corporate entity -- but having to give some confidence to
any viewer that there are significant resources available so they can execute
on the most important decisions they will make (at least for full-blown ERP).
Take a look at netsuite.com. Notice how they organize their main navbar:
Products (for us, could be features / solutions or similar)
Customers
Solutions (note the "By Role", exactly to Adrian's point there is CEO /
CFO / CIO)
Platform
Services (for OFBiz, this could be "Resources")
Partners (SI's?)
Company (History, Intro Committers and other key contributors?)
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Wheeler [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 12:16 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [MARKETING] Updating our OFBiz Website
Good points.
How many of the new visitors are going to install OFBiz themselves as compared
to the number who will ask an OFBiz System Integrator to do the job?
How many are coming here to verify the assertions made by System Integrators or
to assess the maturity of their proposed system's base product (roadmap,
release frequency, maintenance policies, strength of the management team) and
activity of the community?
Many (most???) of the key contributors make their living by delivering a fork
of OFBiz that they customize for each client so they may have a different
perspective of what the site should do.
What should be the balance between open source traditions vs promoting
individual SI companies through listing their customers and resources or
linking to their web sites?
Ron
On 28/07/2015 11:58 AM, Nick Rosser wrote:
> Agree with all.
>
> >From our experiences anyone who contacts us about OFBiz services is
> >typically a techy. They have dug around the OFBiz and BigFish sites and are
> >looking for additional information in order to gauge how applicable OFBiz is
> >for their business. As a tech their first hurdle will be to convince the
> >bosses to consider OFBiz. I'm sure in most cases the bosses do some basic
> >research and are totally unimpressed with our current informational web
> >sites.
>
> As a business owner, whenever I'm looking for software solutions I will be
> swayed by:
>
> (a) who is using it now -- number of customers and who those customers are
> (have I heard of them)
>
> (b) who can support my tech / user team to get up and running
>
> (c) who can support my tech / user team into the future (strength of
> documentation, resources, community)
>
> Now for a more contentious topic that has been raised before -- a more
> compelling and prominent list, with some visuals, of who-is-using-OFBiz and
> Service Providers. IMHO, we have to remember that most of the other Apache
> projects are technical in nature, and the decisions for selection are made by
> techies, with approval from a techy boss. These offerings are also downloaded
> thousands of times (of hundreds of thousands) so having a who-is-using-this
> section is inappropriate.
>
> OFBiz is different, it's a bet-your-business decision and a decision
> typically approved by the business. I'd like to think we can do a much
> better job of promoting (marketing) the solution for the real decision makers
> (in Adrian's words, CFO / CIO).
>
> Nick
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Brohl [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 4:39 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [MARKETING] Updating our OFBiz Website
>
> I totally agree with that point with an addition - the business *and*
> technical stuff must be presented in a clear and easy to find way.
>
> We don't know who is looking at the site and for what purpose so
> everything should be covered:
>
> - the CEO/CFO who is looking for a new platform wants to see features,
> licenses, references who is using OFBiz, service providers etc.,
> everything you need to decide if OFBiz is for you on the business level
> and which risks and chances it brings
>
> - the CIO and his staff who has the task to evaluate new platforms for
> his company, he needs some of the above but also some more technical
> informations like architecture, used frameworks, documentation etc. to
> decide if the platform is also fitting to the company system landscape,
> the know-how of his staff etc.
>
> - the developer who is searching for technical documentation, data
> models, API, best practices etc.
>
> - the user who is searching for user centric documentation, best
> practices and help
>
> I think the main page should include these entry points with easy to
> understand titles.
>
> Michael Brohl
> ecomify GmbH
> www.ecomify.de
>
> Am 28.07.15 um 10:14 schrieb Adrian Crum:
>> It would be nice if our site update targeted end users - with links to
>> the existing developer-centric content.
>>
>> Our site appeals to geeks, not to CFOs or CEOs - those who need to
>> make platform decisions. Maybe we should rethink our presentation to
>> the outside world.
>>
>> Adrian Crum
>> Sandglass Software
>> www.sandglass-software.com
>>
>> On 7/28/2015 12:06 AM, Sharan-F wrote:
>>> Hi All
>>>
>>> Is anyone available to help me start putting together some ideas or
>>> examples
>>> of what our new OFBiz website main page could look like ?
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Sharan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> View this message in context:
>>> http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/MARKETING-Updating-our-OFBiz-Website-tp4668990p4671121.html
>>> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>>
>
>
--
Ron Wheeler
President
Artifact Software Inc
email: [email protected]
skype: ronaldmwheeler
phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102
