Re: Grateful Dead Marketing

[Luis Commins <luis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hiya,

I agree that this misconception is widespread (and sometimes justified) but
the success Linux is riding on is based on greater user knowledge, a more
informed 'public' is what is needed to bring the message home (as it stands
most 'converts' are very familiar with several OSes, so their conversion is
based on a wider experience). There are efforts to make it more mainstream
with companies like Corel and HP supporting it (and in the case of Corel:
actively developing a 'user friendly' frontend and installation).

Regards,

Luis.


At 20:55 +0000 17/3/99, Dan C. Rinnert wrote:
>M. Simon,msimon@tefbbs.com writes:
>>I think the only way FORTH will succeed is to give it all away.
>>
>>We need more free stuff.
>
>Based on my own experiences, I'm not so sure.  I run a local community
>network in Greater Cincinnati.  We offer free eMail, free participation in
>discussion forums, file downloads, etc.  No registration or setup fees.
>Free, free, free.
>
>Result?
>
>Local people still flock to AOL to pay them $21.95 per month to do basically
>the same stuff.
>
>I think there's a problem with the perceived value.  That is, if you charge
>for something, people have a tendency to think that it must be worth it.
>And, if you give away something for free, it must be worthless.
>
>On another list I'm on, several months ago a person mentioned that his
>company lost an account, because his price was *TOO LOW*.  The lost client
>told them that if they were offering such a low price, they must not be
>putting as much effort into it as the company they went with who had a bid
>almost twice as high.
>
>Look at how many people will purchase a namebrand product at a premium price
>because they think it must be worth more than a generic product at a lower
>price.  Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't; but people will have a tendency
>to think that the more expensive product is "better".
>
>It's true that Linux has done well with the free model, but not as well as
>commercial operating systems.  How many more Linux users do you think there
>would be today if, five years ago, there was a "Microsoft Linux" or "IBM
>Linux"?  I would think that more people would have purchased the M$ Linux
>system than would have downloaded the free Linux systems.
>
>I think the best route would be to offer it at a fair and competitive price,
>rather than for free.  A fair price gets questions like, "Do you take
>American Express?" while FREE gets questions like, "What's the catch?"
>
>Dan
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