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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>I understand what you're saying about engineers tossing a
product over the wall being a throw back. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN
class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>*Of course*
there's back and forth and both marketing and rnd contributing to each
other.. <SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>But I think it is typical for engineers to yearn for a
larger role in marketing decisions and, less so, marketing to overstate
their role in product engineering. Both groups have strong
investments in the product dev process in different ways. I think
engineering tends to be more of a group development effort, where marketing
relies more on the strength of individuals, all with very good reasons.
</FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=921115616-29042008>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>If the concerns are too overlapped, or if there is no
seperation and specialization, I don't think that works well generally.
</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT
face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I think there's very high value wrt role
seperation and specialization. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN
class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I don't think it
was suggested that there was some kind of wall in the middle, that's
ridiculous. But t<SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>he best products come from a respect for the others roles
and intense focus on what people are good
at.</FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=921115616-29042008></SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN
class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=921115616-29042008></SPAN></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Matt</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=921115616-29042008></SPAN><SPAN
class=921115616-29042008></SPAN><SPAN class=921115616-29042008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> community-bounces@lists.openmoko.org
[mailto:community-bounces@lists.openmoko.org] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Lowell
Higley<BR><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, April 29, 2008 12:11 PM<BR><B>To:</B> List for
Openmoko community discussion<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: Engineering Driven vs.
Community Driven (was Re: Ugliness)<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Ok.. I'm severely jet lagged but I will try to throw some closure on
this and hope it is coherent. Steve has been very cordial and
enlightening in his mails to me. The last I have yet to digest and respond
to but overall it is good, constructive stuff. After reading the diaglogue that
has ensued, I totally understand why he wanted to take the conversation
private. We'll has some things and go from there. Sorry for starting
a firestorm.<BR><BR>I want to let everyone know I don't intend to be negative
and that was why I sent that last message. If I see problems, I want to
offer solutions. I also want to thank Stroller for his phenomenal job for
capturing (and translating) what I was trying to say.<BR><BR>There was one
statement made that I want to comment on...<BR><BR>><SPAN><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>I mean marketing is really just "how to
sell"....<SNIP></FONT></SPAN><BR><BR>That statement could not be farther
from the truth, IMHO. I think any Tech CEO worth his salt would tell you
the same. That very statement and belief is why so many startups in
Silicon Valley (and probably worldwide) with very amazing products have gone
bankrupt. I have friends that lived through that nightmare. That mindset
is the very essence of the problem my original e-mail was trying to
address. I couldn't have summed it better myself. It makes it sound
like engineering comes up with a product all on it's own, throws it over a wall
and to Marketing and says "here, sell it". Kind of like a hot potato. That was
the case once... in the 60's, I believe. <BR><BR>Today, any company that
had that mindset would not last long unless they had very deep pockets. Yes, I
have a specific company in mind. My thought is let's roll that marketing
effort over to this project from a community perspective. A lot of Open
Source projects already do it.. Open Office is the first one that comes to
mind. One of the thing I want to do with Steve is draw some boundaries...
What is in Openmoko's court, and what is in the community's court regarding
marketing... etc.<BR><BR>In the meantime, let's roll out the FreeRunner and once
it's out, well attack the next project publicly. Ok.. I'm going to sleep
now. :) Cheers!<BR><BR>Lowell<BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 6:58 PM, steve <<A
href="mailto:steve@openmoko.com">steve@openmoko.com</A>> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"> thanks
for explaining that to folks<BR>
<DIV class=Ih2E3d><BR><BR>-----Original Message-----<BR>From: <A
href="mailto:community-bounces@lists.openmoko.org">community-bounces@lists.openmoko.org</A><BR></DIV>
<DIV class=Ih2E3d>[mailto:<A
href="mailto:community-bounces@lists.openmoko.org">community-bounces@lists.openmoko.org</A>]
On Behalf Of Stroller<BR>Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 2:01 PM<BR>To: List for
Openmoko community discussion<BR>Subject: Re: Engineering Driven vs. Community
Driven (was Re: Ugliness)<BR><BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=Wj3C7c>On 28 Apr 2008, at 17:54, hank williams wrote:<BR><BR>> I
have to say my unvoiced thoughts were the same as Ryan's. I was<BR>> not at
all clear why a call for the community to help figure<BR>> marketing stuff
out would be met by a request to take the<BR>> discussion off list as
though it was somehow inappropriate for<BR>> public discussion. It seemed
like a very strange response. Now<BR>> reading the responses to Ryan's
comments seem even more strange. I<BR>> feel like I am missing something
because the responses to Ryan's<BR>> comments seem on the surface,
inappropriate as well.<BR><BR><BR>If you read further back in this thread
you'll see that the subject<BR>changed in reply to my message, "Re: Ugliness"
(26 April 2008<BR>13:58:04 BST).<BR><BR>If you read back you'll see that
before that someone was complaining<BR>"the Freerunner will never sell in the
mass-market because me & my<BR>friends think it's ugly", and my
counterpoint was, "heck, I'm sure<BR>FIC have done some market research (focus
groups &c)".<BR><BR>Lowell Higley obviously knows his stuff regarding
selling tech<BR>products, and he raises some interesting points. I immediately
wanted<BR>to reply to them, but I could have spent hours doing so. Not to
argue<BR>with him, just to purse interesting avenues of discussion.<BR><BR>But
Lowell's insights are far more in depth than your average Xbox
vs<BR>Playstation, who's-winning-the-format-war, fanbois' forum thread.
As<BR>Lowell says:<BR><BR> Marketing is much more than holding focus
groups and creating sales<BR> copy. There is competitive analysis,
business cases, marketing<BR> requirements, "negotiating" with
engineering over the final product,<BR> schedule.. and the list goes on.
My point is, as I look at things<BR> and put the picture together,
I see no strong marketing presence<BR> in the FreeRunner. Where's
the MRD? Where's the focus group?<BR> Where's the business
case?<BR><BR>In case you don't speak the business jargon, "competitive
analysis"<BR>means "how much does the competition sell for, how much will it
cost<BR>us to make a similar product and how much profit can we
make?".<BR><BR>"Business cases" and the results of focus groups, say FIC
stating<BR>that "you & your friends may think it's ugly, but we reckon we
can<BR>sell XX thousand units and make $yyyyyyy profit" aren't really any
of<BR>our business.<BR><BR>In his second message (27 April 2008 18:16:11 BST)
Lowell raises the<BR>"goal" of the OpenMoko project, which is ostensibly "the
best<BR>possible mobile phone software stack" that can be installed over
a<BR>wide range of phones. But underlying that is the fact that the goal<BR>of
FIC, in sponsoring OpenMoko, is to sell more phones and (like any<BR>business)
make more profit.<BR><BR>For any company this sort of information - the
anticipated number of<BR>units sold, market breakdown &c - is a trade
secret, and I don't see<BR>why OpenMoko should be any different. In many cases
this sort of<BR>information may be available to someone with experience in
the<BR>industry (or reasonably estimable by them), but it may not be
the<BR>sort of information that any company will publish
casually.<BR><BR>Whilst OpenMoko may be interested in public discussion of
what we<BR>consumers want (colours, features &c), whilst they may be
interested<BR>in open discussion of ideas and whilst they're obviously
prepared to<BR>give fuller and more dynamic feedback to us, how much money
they're<BR>making on each phone is none of our business. I'm sure that
Apple<BR>don't even tell their shareholders how much each iPod costs to
build.<BR><BR>When we buy FIC's OpenMoko products we're buying hardware that
is<BR>guaranteed open-source, so that we can fix it ourselves. We're
buying<BR>FIC's sponsorship of the programmers contributing to the
OpenMoko<BR>codebase and we're buying a promise of warranty & support in
the<BR>future (we obviously hope that FIC will continue to sponsor
updated<BR>firmware for our phones in the future, and we're pretty
confident<BR>they're going to do so longer - and provider better feature
updates -<BR>than Sony Ericson). Just as, in polite company, one doesn't ask
one's<BR>friends or acquaintances how much they earn, it is likewise none
of<BR>our business how much FIC makes out of each phone sake, and it
seems<BR>to me that that's pretty much what the "secrecy" whiners on
this<BR>thread are asking for (although they may not have actually
realised<BR>that),<BR><BR>Any company will provide "inside information" to the
trade press -<BR>perhaps if you're able to demonstrate such informed questions
as<BR>Lowell has then FIC'll invite you, too, to their
opening<BR>presentations. You'll maybe have to sign an NDA, but you'll still
be<BR>able to make oblique tips to your readers based on your
improved<BR>vision of the mobile phone market place. What you have to do first
is<BR>demonstrate that you're not a whining fanboi, but that your
unique<BR>insight can add value to the discussion of the product.<BR><BR>I
found Lowell's remarks interesting because he seems to be looking<BR>at
Freerunner's place in the market from the old closed-development<BR>point of
view. It seems likely to me that FIC don't need to sell as<BR>many phones as
Nokia in order to make a profit, at least not all at<BR>once - the developing
state of OpenMoko will ensure a longer<BR>production life-span for the
Freerunner than the 6 months or so of<BR>the typical mobile phone in the high
street store. As the first<BR>generation of OpenMoko phone, the whole
production span of Freerunner<BR>may be a loss-leader to FIC - one might
expect the buzz and blogging<BR>generated over the course of two years to
increase massively the<BR>demand for OpenMoko's 2010 (say)
product.<BR><BR>Stroller.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Openmoko
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