[KLUG Advocacy] Seagate and Lindows.com

[Robert G. Brown]

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 15:59:17 -0500, John Bridleman <john@bridleman.org> wrote:

>I got this from Seagate today and thought it was cool. 
...
>~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>         SEAGATE ENABLES SYSTEM BUILDERS TO PROVIDE 
>          HIGH-PERFORMANCE, LOW-COST PC SOLUTIONS.
>
>     Now you can build on Barracuda 7200.7 hard drives 
>         pre-loaded with a FREE copy of LindowsOS--
>            only from Seagate and Lindows.com.
>~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This is actually much more than cool, it is an interesting showcase 
example of good marketing and packaging.

The reason that Windows is so overwhelmingly dominant is that Gates understood
two principles (and was able to act on them) before almost everyone else:

1. If you are first to market with software you gain a great advantage.
   People are USING your product while everyone else is TALKING about theirs.

2. Push the installation of software as far up the supply chain as possble.

If you can do both, the market is yours to lose.

The whole principle of Windows pre-installed on systems prior to delivery
has been a huge boon to Microsoft all these years. In addition, pre-installing
other packages on Windows (e.g., Office) has provided similar advantages.

This was quite an insight at the time (early 1980's), and it provided a 
market advantage that no one had been able to challenge since. At that time,
most systems were sold pretty much raw, and the user (or reseller) had to
supply an OS, utilities, etc. When The IBM PC came out, with PC-DOS (MSDOS),
the user/reseller was releived of this time consuming task. Moreover, the
"microcomputer" market had the imprimateur of IBM, and the fact that you 
could take it out of the box and start using it was a new thing for many 
people.

The difference between "Purchased with Windows (maybe Office, etc.) already
installed" as opposed to: "Buy this machine bare, and install what you like"
is just too intimidating for most people. Almost as importantly, No reseller
is going to take on responsibility and time/cost for installing an OS and
common software when it can be wrapped into the fixed cost of the system.
Simply the staffing and risk management issues make this choice a no-brainer,
people have gone with Windows just about every time, especially when dealing
with a mass-market effort.

Sustaining that marketing insight has been the netowrk effect ("All my friends
and everyone at the office is using Windows and Office, so I have to, too").

Pre-installed Linux systems are an indication that Linux is gaining market
share. Yes, Pre-installed systems have been availabel for years, and you still 
have to LOOK for them, butthey're there. Microsoft still has a lot of that 
capacity, and that may change, slowly. This announcement is probably aimed 
at resellers and users who aren't afraid to install thier own disk drive and
tnker a bit, still a minority of users in general (I think the general popu-
lation thinks of computers they way they do of toasters), but it is another
step in the right direction.

							Regards,
							---> RGB <---