Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Free & Libre are bad "selling points"

On 2 January 2011 14:43, Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi :)
>
> The assumption in this list appears to be that "free" is the only "unique
> selling point" (=USP) that LibreOffice has and that it will generate
> large-scale
> uptake.
>
>
> However, i think 10years of OpenOffice using that USP has resulted in
> MicroSquish dominating the market.  T



MS was more dominant 10 years ago so you could argue that free has helped
:-)



> his proves that the USP of being free has
> NOT been favourable.

No it doesn't. But of course it doesn't tell us what would have been a more
effective USP either.


> If 10 years worth of real-life data is not enough then i doubt a market
> survey
> will make much difference.

The fact is that MS Office has had between 10% and 20% of its market share
eroded by OOo over the last 10 years and has probably had to reduce its
prices knocking billions from MS revenue over that time. Dismissing market
research (which is much more than a survey) and then drawing what is
obviously a flawed conclusion from no data at best and at worst an emotional
rather than objective view of the situation, only goes to reinforce the need
for proper data.

In that same time-frame Firefox grew by a very much larger percentage to the
> point where it has now overtaken Internet Explorer within the same
> time-frame.

No it hasn't. IE still has a bigger share of the market
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/02/browser_market_share_july/

Firefox did have the advantage that people though IE was free and therefore
> were
> relatively happy to accept that IE might not be high quality.

It's more likely that the key factor is that it is easy to swap browsers and
much more difficult to swap office apps because there is a clear set of open
standards for browsers but a set of secret and de facto standards for office
apps. Google Chrome has increased its market share rather more easily than
Google Docs for this very reason.

Ubuntu has also grown in a similar  time-frame to the point that in almost
> any
> newsagents you will see at least 1 magazine mentioning it or even carrying
> a
> full article about it.  Where are the articles about OpenOffice?

Ubuntu has a guy with £300m in the bank behind it who is completely focused
on getting Ubuntu take up. LO has no such financial backing and even OOo
under Sun was backed mainly in developer time rather than cash. It would be
just as easy to say that until LO establishes a clear method of generating
income, it will never compete effectively. That is not to do with USPs, it
is to do with sustainable business models.



> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Ian Lynch <ianrlynch@gmail.com>
> To: marketing@libreoffice.org
> Sent: Sun, 2 January, 2011 12:03:39
> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Free & Libre are bad "selling points"
>
> On 2 January 2011 08:44, Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > In my country this is what people think of when they hear the word
> "free".
> > Anyone that hears the words "free software" will find that
> > indistinguishable
> > from freeware which is much more widely known but only as something that
> > has
> > caused a lot of problems.
> >
> > I am beginning to accept that maybe my country is possibly a little
> > different
> > from other European countries but i really thought this was part of the
> > human
> > condition.
> >
> >
> > I didn't start using OpenOffice because it was free.  I only moved away
> > from
> > MicroSquish Office because i had no choice when i moved to linux.  I did
> > try to
> > install it inside Linux but it wasn't easy and that was nearly a blocker
> > for me
> > so i kept re-booting back into Windows to do stuff with linux just being
> > for
> > fun.
> >
> > However when i did finally try OpenOffice (by mistake) i found it was
> > superior
> > to MicroSquish Office because it didn't keep changing styles, formatting,
> > language, tab-stops;
> > 1.  I didn't need to sort all the formatting after finishing the document
> > 2.  Numbered lists were easier, numbers didn't get randomly missed out
> > 3.  Numbered and bulleted lists lined up within themselves
> > 4.  Bullet-points didn't randomly change size
> > 5.  Spell-checker stayed in my non-american language throughout
> > Also no pop-ups stole the focus while i was typing so i didn't have to
> deal
> > with
> > other stuff in the middle of writing and i didn't have to re-key
> anything.
> >  This
> > last point is an advantage of linux rather than OpenOffice/LibreOffice.
> >
> > So at the end i didn't need to spend ages sorting technical formatting
> > problems
> > and was able to use the time purely proof-reading and shortening things.
> >  The
> > whole thing was completed in less than half the time i had expected!
> >
> > However i would never have used it if i had any choice.
> >
> > Do other people here "settle for" LibreOffice purely because of it's
> price?
> >  If
> > it cost more would you really all run back to MicroSquish's "superior
> > product"?
> >
> > Regards from
> > Tom :)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Am 01.01.2011 16:44, schrieb Tom Davies:
> >
> > > Free means "has no value", "is worthless", "cheaper than "cheap and
> > nasty"",
> > > "so bad it can't be sold", "not worth having", "about the same value as
> > > garbage".
> >
> > If this is your understanding of the meaning of free software, then
> > why do you engage yourself in a free software project?
> >
> > LibreOffice by its definition is free software (not freeware). IMO
> > freedom is a good selling point, maybe the main point at all.
> >
> > Stefan
> > --
> > LibreOffice - Die Freiheit nehm' ich mir!
> >
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>
> A lot depends on who you are targeting. Some people now expect to get stuff
> free. No-one expects to pay for social networking or search on the
> internet.
> Young people can appreciate free and good enough. So let's intelligently
> target particular markets based on evidence of what that particular
> audience
> wants to hear rather than pre-conceived generalities that might or might
> not
> apply. Market research is needed if marketing is to be effective.
>
> --
> Ian
>
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-- 
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