[Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets

Graham Lauder yorick_ at openoffice.org
Thu Sep 30 23:02:42 CEST 2010


On Friday 01 Oct 2010 02:34:08 Thorsten van Lil wrote:
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: mageia-dev-bounces at mageia.org [mailto:mageia-dev-bounces at mageia.org]
> Im Auftrag von Graham Lauder
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 30. September 2010 13:21
> An: Mageia development mailing-list
> Betreff: [Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets
> 
>>A mistake that is often made is branding from an internal aesthetic when
>>in fact branding should be more aimed externally to attract a new
>>demographic.
>>
>>If the gods are in alignment then ideally it should point toward our 
>> principle point of difference and again this influences our branding      
>> choices in terms of Colour Pallet Logo and so forth.
> 
> This point is a bit difficult to me, as we (as the community) are the
> internal and external in one. We create the distribution for us (the whole
> community) and try enlarge the community.

There is a balancing act of course and all one can do is reiterate the concept 
so that when people make a decision they take it into account.  But then 
that's my job, because at first the marketing is always aimed inward.  For 
this concept it's actually not that hard, all I'm asking people to think about 
is:  "Would your Mother like this branding?" because at the end of the day 
that's who the target is,  the vast majority of family purchase decisions are 
made by the mother. 

> 
> For example, afaik nearly 75% of the mandriva user (and there for Mageia
> user) use KDE. If we for example aim an group of people which KDE doesn't
> fit, we will probably loose more users the win new users. That's the tricky
> part of a community distro I think ;)

Ubuntu has done well, being focused on Gnome.  I do like the suggestion that 
we should be the Best KDE OS, it's a good focus. 

> 
>>The "feel" to me that came from the brainstorming was that Mageia could be
>>marketed as the "Family Distro".  This being a principle point of difference
>>when a user makes a decision as to what operating system to run.
> 
> Although I don't count myself to this group, I'm totally fine with the idea
> and see that it is a nearly untapped market. But on the otherside: how big
> could this market be?

Huge. 

> 
> >So for instance as well as the standard software, educational programmes
> 
> would
> 
> >be installed by default, be NetSafe (Dans Guardian), have OOo4Kids
> 
> installed
> 
> >as well as a full office suite, Tuxtype, TuxPaint and so on.
> 
> Here I see some problems:
> If we release a LiveCD and a DVD (like Mandriva does), there will be enough
> space on the LiveCD for extra software. On the DVD there is enough space I
> think, but is it for example really necessary to ship to office suits, just
> to define our aimed market?

On a DVD there would be room, especially we concentrated on a single major DE, 
but that is a packaging issue

> 
> >Documentation added to show parents how to set up accounts for the kids
> >and
> >
> >how to make it Net safe.
> 
> That's a really cool idea! As we also debate about a welcome center, there
> should definitely be a link in it, to that kind of documentation.
> 
> I think that the normal home user and a young family have nearly the same
> requirements. Both need an easy to install and maintain and use system (yes
> I know: who doesn't want this). Maybe we can create a distribution which
> fits such requirements and specialize to the family with meta-packages,
> special documentation and tools for them?



> 
> Regards,
> TeaAge
> 

Cheers
GL
-- 
Graham Lauder,
OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ
http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html

OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant.

INGOTs Assessor Trainer
(International Grades in Open Technologies)
www.theingots.org


More information about the Mageia-dev mailing list