Re: Marketing list action: Market Research for GNOME and GNU/Linux

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:09:21 +1300
"John Williams" <JWilliams business otago ac nz> wrote:

> [snip]
> 
> We can guess and opine all we want, but what are the facts?  I have
> *never* seen any "real" [1] market research into:
> 
> (1) What potential GNOME and GNU/Linux users want
> or
> (2) The barriers to free software adoption, split by user segment
> 
> 
> The FOSS Europe report was the only document that even came close to
> addressing these issues.  Perhaps I am simply unaware of what has
> already been done?  I see the need for primary research into these
> questions.  Am I alone?
> 
> I can help construct surveys and questionnaires, analyse data etc.
> However I don't have access to funds to pay for things like printing,
> postage and data entry.  If there is a need for my services I would
> love to contribute.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> John.
> 
> [1] I mean: not based on secondary data, not "expert" opinion, not
> focus groups or small non-representative or non-random samples.  I
> suppose I mean large-scale primary research (mail-out self-completion
> questionnaires, mall intercepts, telephone interviews etc.).
> 

I share your point of view. On the other hand, GNOME's potential market
(or audience) is worldwide (or at least very large), isn't it?

Thus, some questions arise. For example: What would be a representative
sample size? How do we define the sample? How do we make sure the sample
is indeed random?

But the most important question would be: What do we do with the
results?

I really share your point of view, but it might be worth to consider our
resources first, and maybe make small steps here.

For example, we all know that network economics protects Microsofts
position. We all do know that TCO studies in favour for a Microsoft
solution is due to high training costs. This already hints to potential
target groups.

I also like to add that I've seen no concrete marketing goal yet.
Without this, we can't even consider which potential questions might
be the most interesting.

Thus, I like to suggest we start small: Let's skip the "real" market
research for a few years. A web-based survey would be sufficient for the
start. As far as I know there has been no survey at all about user's
wishes or what makes people don't use Linux or GNOME.

This will give us also the ability to rework the questionaire. A
web-based software for things like that might be:

http://phpesp.sourceforge.net/ 
http://phpsurvey.sourceforge.net/

Nevertheless, even a low-quality survey would be great indeed. I'm sorry
if my position is a little bit too pragmatical.

Claus