RE: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?

From: Frank Pawlak (fpawlak_at_wi.rr.com)
Date: 12/28/04

  • Next message: Nikolas Britton: "Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?" 
    Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 01:23:57 -0600
To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, "Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg" <listsub@401.cx>, Simon Burke <simon.burke@gmail.com>

    This beyond a doubt is one of the best explanations that I have seen,
    heard, expressed, etc., of how the fsck'ed up world of business does IT
    stuff, and I have done IT consulting on various levels for over 18
    years. Very well said Ted. It points out quite well why BSD in general
    has a bad time in the marketplace.

    Regards,
    Frank

    At 11:36 PM 12/27/2004, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

    > > -----Original Message-----
    > > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
    > > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Roger 'Rocky'
    > > Vetterberg
    > > Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:57 PM
    > > To: Simon Burke
    > > Cc: freebsd-www@freebsd.org; freebsd-arch@freebsd.org;
    > > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org
    > > Subject: Re: FreeBSD's Visual Identity: Outdated?
    > >
    > >
    > > Simon Burke wrote:
    > > [snip]
    > > >>2. If it wasn't for the interesting content and structure of the FreeBSD
    > > >> website, it would be among the less beautiful. Yes, it serves its
    > > >> purpose well by being simple and straight to the point. But
    > > a redesign
    > > >> could offer just the same -- simplicity and accuracy -- without being
    > > >> ugly.
    > > >
    > > >
    > > > Aesthetics are not everything, the web site does what its supposed to
    > > > do. Also i actually like how it looks.
    > > > A lot of people have strong feelings about all these all singing all
    > > > dancing webistes. There is just no need. Keep it simple and easy to
    > > > navigate around thats all thats really important. If the aesthetics
    > > > really matter more than function to such people who use BSD then they
    > > > would probably be not using BSD but either windows or linux, where you
    > > > have a nice pretty GUI to look at all the nice pretty sites.
    > >
    > > This is where I think a lot of people simply does not understand the
    > > problem.
    >
    >Roger I understand the problem, I wrote a book on FreeBSD integration
    >in 2000. The problem is I think you don't understand the problem.
    >
    > > Im a FreeBSD user. I like FreeBSD because it does not have all the
    > > flashy installers and pretty GUI's that many linux distros seems to
    > > have today.
    >
    >That frankly isn't the reason you should like it. You should like it
    >because it works better than most commercial operating systems let
    >alone most operating systems.
    >
    > > But still, Ive been screaming for years for someone to
    > > improve the website. Why?
    > > Anyone that has stood in front of a boardroom full of CEO's or similar
    > > and tried to promote the use of FreeBSD in a big organisation knows
    > > why. They might like all the facts about the os, the rock-solid
    > > stability, the lightning-fast performance and its solid reputation as
    > > a server os, but one look at the website and they will run screaming
    > > towards the nearest linux advocate instead.
    >
    >Most of the CEO's I've dealt with don't give a *** on a shingle about
    >a product website. What they care about is: 'can what I need done
    >be done in a way that is a) cheap and b) works and c) won't lock me
    >in to you'
    >
    >FreeBSD meets criteria A and B really well but it does not meet C. Linux
    >meets A and B but BARELY meets C. Windows definitely meets C and usually
    >meets B and doesen't usually meet A.
    >
    >The problem of course is that A and C are related. If I am a CEO and
    >I sign a FreeBSD or Linux deal - and you are a sole-source provider,
    >then once I have all my business processes into you, I'm locked into
    >you. Once that happens my thought processes are that your going to become
    >very expensive to me - why, because there's no competition to you out there.
    >I'm not going to do that unless I trust you implicitly. And there's very
    >few business people I am ever going to trust implicitly, save perhaps unless
    >your a son or daughter, and even then I may not.
    >
    >You have to understand of course that this is old-school knee-jerk
    >thinking. The CEO's are scared to death of you Roger. They don't
    >understand what your selling, they don't understand how to integrate
    >technology into their systems, they don't even understand their
    >current system.
    >
    >CEO's choose Windows because they think that there's enough Windows
    >guys out there that if they don't like the one they have they can
    >boot him out and get another. They only will give up choosing Windows
    >if they either absolutely cannot afford it, or if Windows simply won't
    >do what they need done.
    >
    >If they cannot afford it, what they will then do is keep dragging
    >Windows consultant after Windows consultant in to present to them,
    >until they stumble over an ignoramus (which is not hard) who over
    >commits himself and promises the world. They will then burn up
    >this guy, threatening lawsuits and everything else until they have
    >extracted the last drop of free work they can, then they will
    >jettison him. If they simply cannot find any ignoramuses then
    >I've seen them try deputizing some sales guy or secretary to manage
    >their Windows deployment, and finally a year afterwards when they
    >have a house full of Windows XP Home edition and no server, and
    >a giant workgroup that's falling apart, and they have lost some
    >critical files because they wern't backing up Sally Sue's workstation
    >and her disk crashed, then they will panic and overspend on a
    >Windows installation.
    >
    >The CEO's that choose FreeBSD or Linux are the ones where even the
    >Windows consultants they drag in all tell them "I can't do that"
    >either because Windows cannot do it, or because the price they
    >want it done at is so unbelievably cheap that even the ignoramus
    >Windows consultants can see that it's impossible.
    >
    >My take on it is that about 90% of the FreeBSD production installs
    >are least-cost deals. All of the ones we have ever sold to
    >customers (and we do both Windows and UNIX projects) are like this.
    >I'm sure that one of these days we might get a plum contract that
    >is a high-power server that cannot be done with Windows and the
    >customer knows it, and wants it done UNIX, it's only a matter of
    >time. But I would be willing to bet that after they ask if we can
    >do UNIX and we say yes, their next question will be if we can do
    >Sun, which we can. And frankly the cost of Solaris for a server is
    >nothing compared to the labor cost.
    >
    >I've frankly never seen a Linux-vs-FreeBSD deal where Linux won
    >if the consultant wanted to use FreeBSD, and the customer was willing
    >to deviate from Microsoft. VERY few customers are willing to deviate
    >from Microsoft, at least not in the Western states. And the ones
    >that are willing almost always want to do it themselves, and only
    >want us to come in and set everything up for them while they watch
    >us over the shoulder and try to get us to teach them how to
    >do it - because these are people who are too lazy to read the manual
    >and learn how to do things themselves, they just want someone to
    >set it up and teach them how to maintain it, so they can pay the
    >minimum amount of money for the specialist, and spend the minimum
    >amount of time learning how to do anything.
    >
    > > We, the users, might not care about our image, but if we want to be
    > > taken seriously by the rest of the world we better do something about it!
    > >
    >
    >I would suggest that if you really are this lit up about this issue
    >that you direct your customers to you OWN website which is quite obviously
    >superior to the FreeBSD one.
    >
    > >
    > > Clearly, you have not tried to "sell" FreeBSD to a big corporation.
    > >
    >
    >Roger you are just being impatient. You haven't defined 'big' here
    >but if you mean 'big' in that the company has over 500 employees
    >in an office building, then even you must know that the check signers
    >in these companies are almost never under the age of 40. Most
    >of them are over 40 and most of them came up through the sales ranks,
    >and not through the technology ranks. These are people who 25 years ago
    >were partying their way through a business degree in some university
    >and the only thing that they really know well is how to sell their
    >companies products. That's why they work at a big company, didn't you
    >know? Deep down they know they are incompetents and they are too
    >scared to go out on their own even when they could make triple the
    >money if they really knew what they were doing.
    >
    >They don't really understand anything about technology
    >infrastructure and they certainly didn't go to grade school or high
    >school with a personal computer in the house, like kids today. And
    >the worst part is that they matriculated during the time that in
    >business education in this country that the 'cog in the machine' aspect
    >of workers was totally emphasized. Their professors drilled into
    >their heads the idea that every worker in the company must be
    >interchangable and they deep down detest and hate the idea of there
    >being any such thing as 'key employees'
    >
    >Why do you think that the current federal government administration
    >just takes the position that workers need to retrain to the new
    >economy, as if just retraining 100 million people every 5 years to
    >new jobs is a good way to run the economy? This is a message that
    >comes straight out of that generation and resonates with todays
    >big business movers and shakers. That is why these people are doing
    >such a terrible job mucking up American big business today, the current
    >debacle with the airline industry is proof of that, and the amount
    >of bankruptcies over the last 6 years has been breathtaking. Very
    >few of these idiots are anything more than closet control freaks.
    >
    >To be successful in todays market you have to be able to individualize
    >your products to what the customers in the market want, and there
    >is no way for a big business to do that without really drastically
    >increasing the complexity of it's business workflow. Customers today want
    >you to stock 100 variations of your product and build all of them to order,
    >and they want it for the same price that 20 years ago they would
    >buy the cookie-cutter version you could sell them for. The only
    >way to do that is to integrate technology completely in every last
    >speck of business process that a big company does, and it takes a crew of
    >key technicians to do that. The few big companies that have learned
    >this aren't asking consultants what the damn operating system is
    >going to be on the computer systems they are asking the consultants
    >to build for them. They are telling the consultants 'this is what
    >the end result needs to be, you either figure out how to get it
    >for us using whatever things you want to use to get there, or get
    >the hell out'
    >
    >Roger, you really need to be dumbing down your presentations, these
    >CEO's your presenting to really don't understand all those big
    >words. Instead of using "FreeBSD" use "UNIX" It's shorter and
    >even the most sheltered of them understand that yooouu-nikx is
    >something that runs computers like winders is. And rather
    >than telling them how many mega-bytes and giga-bits the nice
    >new server is going to run at, just tell them it's going to be
    >big, and fast and powerful like Arnold Schwartznegger. Get
    >them sold on the idea that your providing a -solution to their
    >problems- not that your providing them some freebsd system
    >that is real cool and does something they are pretty fuzzy
    >about exactly what. If they start asking you exactly how your
    >going to do this don't get sidetracked into a technologists
    >conversation.
    >
    >In fact you might just consider hiring a professional salesperson
    >that doesen't really know too much about what your selling. These
    >CEO's really are more interested in things like when your going to
    >be finished building the new system, who is going to train the
    >end users, how is it going to help them make money, how much money
    >are they going to have to pay for it upfront, and how much money
    >they are going to have to pay for it ongoing. The salesperson should
    >be figuring all that out with them first. You shouldn't even
    >be talking about operating systems until you have sold them on
    >yourself and your company, and if FreeBSD really is an objection
    >to them, then they should like you enough so that they want you
    >to build a Linux solution for them. Once you get them hooked and
    >after a year or so you can switch them over to FreeBSD.
    >
    >Ted
    >
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