[PLUG] huh?? commercialized or irrelevant?

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Fri Jun 23 17:49:06 UTC 2006


On Fri, Jun 23, 2006 at 09:41:24AM -0700, Randy Stapilus wrote:
> So, a question: Bearing in mind the overall size and scope and type of  
> people who use Linux and open source, notably in the Portland area, *is*  
> there a realistic market for an "H&R Block" or "Jiffy-Lube" or "Geek  
> Squad" for open source? Or is the community just not substantial enough  
> (yet at least) to support it?

Jane Smallbusinesswoman will not use Linux until she can get this
support.  The market become substantial like most markets; you
build it, starting with zero customers.  Fortunately, 90% of the
work can be done remotely, so you can have customers anywhere you
can find local contractor semi-geeks who can follow instructions
for installs and initial configuration and so forth.  With a full
distributed second-level support team ( somebody who knows Linux
networking, somebody who knows business apps, etc. ), a support
company could provide deep knowledge without a lot of learning-
while-doing, a problem with the current support model.  You need
support staff that is patient and likes helping people with 
inadequate computer skills - nobody like that here. :-(

Such an effort might grow out of the distro companies.  It could
grow out of the right people at PLUG or POSSE.  The key for 
a successful businesses is the "learning curve", an empirical
rule of thumb that says that markets tend to grow by 10x when
price drops by half.  So if there are a dozen or so consultants
in the Portland area tweaking Linux for the occasional business,
then a system that permits the same work to be done twice as
efficiently would soon grow into sixty staff serving 10x the
customers, in Portland alone.  As the support process is
highly amenable to automation, lessons learned, etc., quite a
few efficiency doublings are possible.   Most of the automation
effort can be shared at a national level (helping muffler shops
in Idaho is very much like helping muffler shops in Vermont),
so a large effort can be much more efficient than a small one.

But all this has very little to do with most of the stuff we
spend our time doing.  It involves helping computer-ignorant
users, and many of us are too elitist for that.    The cool
thing is that it doesn't take a large percentage of Linux geeks
to develop a proper customer-service attitude, and succeed
brilliantly, while the rest of us stand around scratching our
heads and accusing them of selling out or something.

I think Scott Kveton is one of the folks that is figuring things
out, and I will enjoy watching him blow our doors off on his way
to success.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs



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