Article for next issue

I have attached an article for consideration in the coming
issue.  It is
quite similar to the draft I circulated earlier.  In fact,
only the
mistakes that I could find have been changed 


Marketing GNOME Part Two: Segmentation, Targeting and
Positioning.

This is the second article that I have written about
Marketing GNOME.  The first on concentrated on issues of
branding and the need for market research. In this article I
will examine some ideas about market segmentation.  Almost
none of these ideas are original to me.  They evolved from
conversations held on IRC, on mailing lists, and captured on
live.gnome.org.  I hope to put forward some ideas for
discussion and debate, and suggest a way forward on these
issues.  I do not claim to have any answers, only a
framework for working toward them.

First, a bit of Marketing theory:

In the marketing world there exists a triple STP:
"Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning".  The
reason why they are a triple is that they should almost
never be analysed or discussed in isolation.

Market Segmentation is about recognition of diversity within
a market, i.e. that not all customers in a given market have
the same needs.  Furthermore, these differing needs may be
so different that separate marketing strategies or tactics
are necessary for particular sub-markets or
"segments".  If that is so, the segments need to
be explicitly defined, and separate marketing actions need
to be planned with respect to each segment.

This is, of course, predicated on the understanding that we
know who "the market" is.  This is often a very
tricky question.  One way to approach a solution is to ask
"Who or what else is the customer choosing
between?" when we want them to choose us.  In other
words, what are the substitutes for GNOME?  If not GNOME,
then what?

Target Marketing is about selecting those segments that the
organisation is willing and able to service.  Any given
segment may be attractive in some way, but not able to be
serviced due to the particular mix of capabilities within
the organisation.

Positioning is about differentiating the organisation's
offering from that of the competition, in the minds of the
customers in the chosen segment.

One of the biggest and most often repeated mistakes that
people make when segmenting a market is to split the market
on the basis of easily observable characteristics of
customers (for example age, sex, education, income).  This
is silly.  The correct way is to segment the market on the
basis of the differing desires (needs, wants) of the market.


Now, the practice in our context:

Who are the "customers" of GNOME, and what do they
want from GNOME and its substitutes?  I do not have the
answers to these questions, but I can make some guesses.  At
the very least GNOME and KDE define a market, in some sense.
(Are there any Linux distributions that don't use one of
these DEs?)  We are reduced to the question: "What do
people want from a Linux/Unix Desktop Environment?". 
From there we can ask "In what major ways will the
wants of customers differ from one another?".  Again, I
have no answers to this, but I can make some guesses.


1.  Distributions want a desktop environment that is easly
branded, i.e. adaptable for their uses, with easy ways to
change strings in messages, artwork, and default URIs etc. 
Reasonably fast change cycles (ideally synched to the
release cycles of the distribution) are also desirable.

2.  Sysadmins want a desktop environment that is easily
configured for thousands or tens of thousands of users. 
They also want stability and long change-cycles.  Fast
bug-fixes (especially security fixes) that are easily
deployable are also needed.  The ability to lock down
configurable aspects of the environment is also necessary. 
Help and support is vital, and paying for it is no problem.

3.  Corporate users want simplicity, usability, stability
and long change-cycles.

4.  Home users and hobbyists want the latest, greatest and
coolest features, simplicity (note: simplicity AND
power/flexibility) and security.  Note that these needs are
similar even though the technical knowledge of these people
ranges from almost zero to as much as it is possible to
have.  What they use the computer FOR is similar (with the
exception of development, almost by definition) but the WAY
they use it is different. Tellingly, they are often --- but
not always, of course --- willing to sacrifice performance
and stability for "bling".

People who have followed similar discussions may be
surprised that I have not included ISVs (Independent
Software Vendors) in the above analysis.  It is frequently
mentioned that GNOME lacks good developer documentation and
that this hinders ISVs contributing to GNOME.  That is true,
but in this article I want to concentrate on the desktop
environment aspect of GNOME, as opposed to the developement
platform aspect.

Note how the desires of groups (1) and (4) are in direct
contrast to those of groups (2) and (3).  These are
obviously broad generalisations, but I believe that they are
sufficiently close to the "truth" that we can
learn something: GNOME needs separate marketing strategies
for distributions and home users, as opposed to sysadmins
and corporate users.  Furthermore, perhaps we need to decide
whether we are willing and able to serve all four markets. 
Can we?  And if so, should we?

The "should we?" question is about target
marketing.  We want to choose the market segments that are
attractive to us, and that we can compete effectively in (if
we are in fact in a competitive situation).  I am, of
course, thinking about KDE here.  It seems fairly obvious to
me that KDE has a particular "feel" about it that
contrasts with GNOME.  It is also obvious to me that each DE
can play to its strengths and acheive its goals without
encroaching on the other's space.  This freedom can be
enhanced by interoperability.  This seems paradoxical (I
seem to be saying make it easy to switch, or --- horrors ---
"defect") until one considers how customers react
to the perception that they are being "locked in"
to a product choice.  Freedesktop.org is our friend here.  
And we must never forget that GNOME and KDE share the common
goal of liberating our fellows from the opression of
proprietary software.  It's all about that most boring and
repetitive of questions: "Is Linux ready for the
Desktop?".  When do we want to be able to answer,
confidently and truthfully, "yes"?  I am fairly
certain we can't do that yet, for the unsupported home user.
 But how long are we willing to wait before we can say
"yes"?  A year?  Two?  Five?  Ten?

It is often remarked these days that "In the battle for
the desktop, Free is not good enough".  Many, many
people use software that they haven't paid for, in the sense
that their parent, school, employer or government paid for
it. (And many people don't realise that they are paying for
Windows when they buy a new PC.)  Additionally, and sadly,
many people don't care about software freedom.  To woo those
people away from their invisible chains, we must be AT LEAST
as good as, and probably MUCH better than, their current
option, along dimensions that MATTER to them.  In this
article I have made some guesses about the things that
matter, but empirical research is needed to assess how good
these guesses are.

So, do we have any progress here?  Is there anything here
that we don't know already?  For some people who are
involved with distributions, or the governance of GNOME and
KDE, all this may be old hat (or wrong!), but it is for the
people who don't hang out on the mailing lists, IRC channels
and wikis that I am writing this article.  So, where to from
here?

Firstly, the GNOME community needs to decide where to
concentrate its effort when considering the improvements
that can and should be make to GNOME.  My money is on
sysadmins and distributions, simply because they are capable
of big wins.  One sysadmin can make descisions that affects
thousands or tens of thousands of users.  They are the
"low hanging fruit".  Similarly with
distributions, although, as noted, these two groups need a
separate strategy.  But they share a similar technological
thread: the behind-the-scenes managability and
configurability of GNOME, as opposed to user-visible
features and aesthetics.  (At this point I should note that
I would much rather help develope a DE that was for the home
user and emphasised personal power and freedom.  So I am not
advocating a course that I have an emotional committment to.
 But that's another story.)

Secondly, distributions and sysadmins like documentation,
plans and schedules.  The current "roadmap" for
GNOME, such as it is, is more like a community scratchpad
than a plan. (Maybe the "real" planning is behind
closed doors?  I doubt it, but these sentiments have been
raised and probably need to be addressed.)  I think that we
can serve our customers better by creating a more detailed
plan.  This brings me to my third and last point.

We need to get distributions and sysadmins more involved
with the GNOME planning and development process.  In short
we should "market with" rather than "market
to" them.  (This is my academic hobby horse coming to
the fore.)  Rather than GNOME "creating value"
which we can then "deliver to the market" we need
to co-create value for GNOME and its consumers WITH those
consumers.  I could go on about this, but I am trying to
restrain myself 

What we can do now?  Form separate (but integrated!) groups
to manage the aspects of GNOME that are relevant for
distributions on the one hand, and sysadmins on the other.

That is all, until next time.
_______________________________________________
Gnome-journal-list mailing list
Gnome-journal-listgnome.org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-journal-li
st