Re: GNOME's Target Markets

[Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com>]

On 7/16/05, Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net> wrote:
> To clarify the stuff I wrote, an example might help:
>
> Let's say we'd target semiprofessional and professional musicians and
> composers. Then, we'd have something to work on:
>
> 1.) We can do a list of FOSS ISV's with the same target market, and
> present advantages and benefits to them, so they extend their use of
> GNOME technologies.
>
> 2.) We can do a list of proprietary ISV's to present similar arguments.
>
> 3.) We can do a list of distributions targeting this segment. A simple
> google search reveals at least three distributions. Then, we present
> arguments to them for using the GNOME desktop.
>
> 4.) However, none of the above will work quite well without a foot in
> the real target market. This could be reached by
>
>     a.) Visiting conferences for musicians with proper LiveCDs in our
>         hands.
>
>     b.) Trying to get GNOME build applications for musicians widely
>         distributed by
>
>         ba.) pushing windows builds for the OpenCD (or make our own
>              GNOME Open CD with Windows builds), and
>
>         bb.) delivering an add-on CD for Linux distributions with
>              autopackages of these applications.
>
>     c.) Promote these applications, and thus the desktop by
>
>         ca.) writing articles about them in journals targeting
>              musicians,
>
>         cb.) writing about them in Linux journals and the planet, and
>
>         cc.) find journalists with an interests in both to feed them
>              with proper informations so that they write about GNOME,
>              and GNOME build applications.
>
>
> It doesn't mean to make GNOME a musicians desktop! The goal would be to
> push enought for momentum to catch. We'd then pick another target
> market, preferably one that is 'close' to the previous one.
>
> There's nothing wrong with picking two or three different target markets
> in the beginning if there are people to support these targets, and the
> markets are properly defined. In fact, this would be a good idea to
> spread the risk of picking the 'wrong' target.
>
> Now this was just an example. I don't think musicians and composers are
> a valuable target for us; KDE seems to be better equipped in this
> segment.
>
> But maybe it shows that a proper definition of a target leads to
> easy TODO lists and plans. We'd just need a proper infrastructure for
> building contact lists, and then work on these lists.
>
> IMHO, this is better than trying to work with general constructs
> such as "ISV", "distributions", or "end users".

Hrm. So I think I finally understand what you're getting at here, and
it is more valuable than I'd understood at first. However, I'm not
looking for this level of active market pursuit yet, and I think that
might help explain the difference in the level of definition we're
looking for.

For example, while picking a very specific target market and pursuing
it the way you've suggested above would be useful, we have bigger open
questions in GNOME right now. For example:

* who does www.gnome.org target? how do we go after those targets?
* the printed material we send to general linux conferences which we
already attend- what does that target? (and is that the best focus of
our efforts/resources?)
* our general market press releases and release notes- what types of
things should they highlight? what language should they use? should we
do different ones for different media outlets, and if so, what should
they be?

I guess the common theme in these questions is 'how do we refine,
polish, and target the efforts and channels we already have', as
opposed to 'what new tasks can we set ourselves to expand into new
markets?' I believe strongly we need to consolidate and strengthn the
things we're already doing before we figure out new things to attack,
and because almost by definition our existing channels are broad-based
and general and must appeal to several different target groups, that
means (I think, and feel free to disagree/explain why I'm wrong) that
means defining and prioritizing high-level target markets, not
specific groups- we're never going to structure www.gnome.org or our
press releases to music producers, for example, so it's not the right
level to think at at this stage in our development. Get those
straight, then we think about the music producers :)

Luis