A marketing angle

[Robert Michel]

Salve David, Ben, *!

On Mon, 20 Nov 2006, David Schlesinger wrote:

> Ben F-W writes:
> >
> > I'd be interested in your views on all this: if nothing else, are my 
> >(multiple) assumptions correct? Does Sean / FIC have a long-term plan 
> >for the marketing of this product? Can we as members of the community 
> >help and if so, how?

> My impression was that they
> were indeed planning on direct sales (which would align them with the
> likes of Apple, at least if you go for iPhone rumors), but I'll let Sean
> speak to that...
[...] 
> I expect that (initially, at least) the folks who go for this device
> will be a similar, if not identical, crowd to the folks who've got Nokia
> 770s.

I think discussion how to sell OpenMoko/Neo1973 to the mass market is 
"a litte bit" to early - but we could keep it in mind, that we will not
only develop for our sake/fun - it would be realy great, when with our
help the plattform OpenMoko/Neo1973 finds a way to the mass market :)

Ok, but the fist stepp would be how can we make it populare to develop
for and with the Neo1973?
A real great step (applause again) was that Sean (and other?) could
convinced FIC that the mass product FIC-GTA001 will be used for
developing a free Linux mobile plattform.
Nearly all developer kits, and embedded devices like gumstix are very
expensive - b/w:
students with time and interest to learn haven't much money,
and those who have money to buy the latest hardware - haven't the time
to develope..

So the Neo1973 is a unique chance to have a big deveoper community :)
And becouse it is so fantastic - I'm convinced that other people do
like this plattform as well and it will become populare.

But I have doubts what a chipping form TW to Europe will cost. In my
first mail to this list I already thougt about to find a partner in 
Europe or Germany to help selling the first 500 or 1000 devices - I 
thought a computer magazin like Linux-magazin.de or heise.de/ct could
like to have an article about OpenMoko/Neo1973 and cooperate with the
first centralised sales promotion - this would have two effects:
- the first devices would become cheaper
- and people got a reason to buy it with this first order

Old selling trick - when the people could buy it all the year, they
will wait until.... but when there is a unique chance to buy it now...
:)

I think the first computer in UK to private persons had been sold
as self solder projects with BBC and a computer magazin.


When the first hundreds or thousands Neo1973 are in the hand of people
like us, who like to develope,hack,portate,documentate.... :)))))))
OpenMoko will have enough power to become a plattform for endusers as
well. And then it could be sold like a PDA, a Linux distribution, or
any other PC.

But it could also sold like a book or better, with a book. 
I choosed SuSE as my first Linux distribution about 8 years ago,
because they printed a good manual for the first steps.

Today, it could be less book more video tutorial, but for the mass
market documentation would be *very* usefull, to educate the customers
to use the power of the smartphone....
And make it easy with softwaresolutions *and* documention to understand,
how it works and how they could use it.

But back to the question how to find the buyers/developers:
google finds with Openmoko+Neo1973  52.700 webpages!
There are many who know about it :))))
And to make it more populare everybody could talk a little 
on other mailing lists/forums... 

We could invite people who have already runing interesting projects,
like Fritz Ganter (http://www.gpsdrive.cc/) or ask those people if
we can anouce the chance with OpenMoko on their project list,
if he can link openmoko...

For universities - when we have a b/w Din-A4 flyer - I would put it
on several pin boards at my university and speak with some professors
(of mobile communicaction institutes) to let them know, when they are
looking for a great plattform for developing...
So when some students make their student research project,
their diploma work with OpenMoko/Neo1973 - that would be great!

>>  3) Community hype is probably the best option, and is likely to
>>  focus around the killer applications: "if you get the OpenMoko you'll
>>  be able to do this with it!".

It? what is it? You can do what ever you like to do with
a mobile PC with GSM/GPRS and AGPS :))))

That is the "killer argument"!

But wait - your audience have to have the will to learn,
to develope and to use this freedom.
The others, who just want to have, to own,
have to wait some month.

But don't get me wrong - I would like to see my girl friend,
my parents say "I want to have such a phone, too".
So I will not develope for my own sake. ;)

Would you agree to concentrate first on building a developer community
and think about "how to promote" the Neo1973 to the mass market, a
little bit later? 

IMHO: When Sean anounce that the hardware design is finished and the
first devices become to be produced (to be sold with windows mobile
in china) but also for the first SDK Developers - then is time enough
to start promoting OpenMoko/Neo1973.

I think at the moment we could use the time to collect some
informations, about AGPS, programming for embedded devices
but also about extended AT-commands which will be used for
communicate with the gsm device.
All these informations will make the OpenMoko/Neo1973 plattform
more interestings - because many of us dislike functions or the lack
of solutions on our mobiles - with good informations (without googling
for hours) it is much more easy to make this things better...
And with good documention OpenMoko/Neo1973 could be choosen as learning
plattform...

Feedback?
Greetings,
rob