[Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets

Fri Oct 1 12:18:53 CEST 2010

Le 2010-10-01 05:56, Wolfgang Bornath a écrit :
+> 2010/10/1 Marc Paré<marc at marcpare.com>:
+>>> Such applications don't have to be installed by default. They just have
+>>> to be available on the installation DVD, with a selectable Educational
+>>> group of applications, much like the Internet and Server groups
+>>> available on existing Mandriva DVD's. It could even be called "Young
+>>> Family".
+>>>
+>>> Note that in the past (at least about 10 years ago), RedHat CD's had
+>>> many selectable installation groups, many of which overlapped. So using
+>>> this approach, there could be groups called "Educational", "Young
+>>> Family", and "Home Office", for example, all containing the
+>>> go-openoffice office suite, among other applications.
+>>> I believe that the current Mandriva DVD doesn't have any overlap between
+>>> installation groups.
+>>>
+>>
+>>> - André (andre999)
+>>>
+>>
+>> I like this approach.
+>
+> Same here. When I used SuSE Linux 4.4.1 they had the same approach. I
+> even did several installations, each with a different set of
+> applications, using the same /home. A good way to find out what you
+> really want/need.
+>
+> Marc, what you wrote about kids being the future is common knowledge,
+> I wonder that so many companies do not recognize that. Microsoft does,
+> they are sponsoring school computer networks and internet access, thus
+> creating their future client base.
+>
+> wobo
+>
+
+Suse Linux really lost momentum when Novell didn't/has not recognized 
+that its netware application days are at an end. If they pushed for a 
+Suse educational netware application/distro, most school boards using 
+the Novel netware apps would migrate this way. Fewer disruptions to 
+their systems. School boards plan 5-10 years in advance for changes and 
+it is extremely difficult for them to change in the middle of planned 
+migration. There is a lot of money involved in this. Most board will pay 
+Microsoft approx. $30-50/seat for use of MSWord -- so for example our 
+board has over 10,000 computers. That is a huge cost just for the use of 
+a Wordprocessor. I don't know the cost of the Novell install/contract 
+but it would most likely approach this amount.
+
+If Mageia had educational partners on-board it would be a huge initial 
+plus to the distro. School boards are, in a traditional sense, expected 
+to spend money and not save/make money. We could, for example, offer to 
+tailor certain aspects of the distro for our education partners. Note 
+that the focus on educational institutions is for foster use of 
+knowledge, so they would most likely be interested in areas of a distro 
+that focussed on kids/adult learning needs. If Mageia did this well, 
+then this could then lead to more educational partners coming on board. 
+We would only need 2-5 educational partners to kick-start this approach. 
+I would suggest to try for 1 educational partner per continent. It would 
+then mushroom from there.
+
+Unfortunately, not having a Mageia server service may hurt us. But there 
+is nothing to stop us from partnering or tooling up our community distro 
+to work well with a server (in this case I would go for RedHat servers).
+
+There is no doubt that the next major expenses in the very near future 
+for school boards is the change in netware applications. And they are 
+still very confused. What they do know is that it will most likely be a 
+linux solution. That is pretty well accepted.
+
+Marc
+
+