Hi Mark, Thanks for your comments. I will respond to some of them inline...
>> Christian, >> >> Besides being appalled over the wastefulness of such a concentration of >> wealth, I spotted a very interesting trend. Within one to two years, >> Bill Gates will probably be surpassed by Warren Buffet as the richest >> person in the world. The only reason this is interesting or important >> is that when it happens, we can try to spin it as the eroding power of >> Microsoft and their coming decline. The only reason that is important >> is that if we break the confidence the public has in Microsoft's >> long-term viability, we open new doors for the growth of OpenOffice, >> Linux and other FLOSS applications. > >Ben, > >I don't want to rain on your parade, but this is hardly news. For several >years, Bill and Warren have leapfrogged each other in different "who's >richer" surveys several times, depending on who's doing the survey, and how >each analyst values different types of assets. > I don't know the detail of Forbes' valuation algorithm, so can't comment on this case. In the Forbes listing this year, it claimed that Bill Gates has held the number one position for 11 consecutive years. So by their ranking, it has been very consistent. My guess is that Forbes, being high-profile, is the one most American (and world?) businesspeople read and believe. This is marketing, after all; it's about perception and not necessarily reality! >> We can even perhaps take credit for >> the declining wealth and power of the monopolist! People will really >> take notice of this, as I'm sure the mainstream press will be talking >> about how BG was surpassed and what it means for MS and the software >> industry, as well. That's our chance to jump into the limelight in a >> new and major way. > >This is a real concern of mine about the FLOSS movement in general. In the >UK at least, more and more people are very cynical of "negativist politics" >and claiming to be responsible for the DOWNFALL of someone's wealth may >alienate rather more people than it attracts. True, and I am among those who not like negative campaigning. However, this sort of announcement really catches the interest of many media publishers, who love to write about the "great rise to power" and "hubristic fall from grace" stories. They are not necessarily interested in all the subtleties, but just want to sell more newspapers/magazines/etc, and hence they often latch onto these yellow journalistic opportunities. With BG, a very enticing story could be about how the once-scrappy upstart became the entrenched power, got corrupt and lazy, and then was replaced by a new generation of rebellious idealists. I think it would get a lot of play, even among those who have weak opinions on the subject. >I realise that in some FLOSS circles, Bill Gates is not well liked (British >understatement there), but in other circles of the general population he is >widely admired. > >Now - here's the thing. The people who think that Bill is the devil are the >same people who are ALREADY using FLOSS products. It's the bunch who >actually rather admire the guy who are the bunch that need converting. I have also found a rather large niche of people who seem to dislike Microsoft and BG but won't actually do anything to remedy the problem. Perhaps it's just that people like to complain about something, but I think the chance they will switch is strong enough that it's worth consideration. This group, at least, isn't tied to the current scenario of Microsoft dominance, and will follow the path of least resistance in most cases. They're not tech-savvy or interested enough to seek new solutions on their own, but would use OOo if it were preinstalled on a new computer, for example. Not that I think my suggestion for grabbing attention will impact these people greatly, but it might shave off a few from the pack. Overall, the people who admire Bill Gates are a small number, and if they are the last holdout partisans in a few years, we'll already have 80-90% marketshare by then! >I'm very very pleased to see that the OOo approach has been to stress the >positive benefits of the product. I, for example, use OOo 2.0 not just >because it's free (as in beer) but because in some key respects (PDF output >which is critical to me) it is a superior product. I am never likely to >examine, let alone change, the source code. (Though I have released other >applications under the GPL, so I've got reasonable FLOSS credentials.) This is my approach when I discuss OOo with people as well. There are so many positive benefits to it that there's no need to go negative on our opponents. In fact, if it's not necessary, I won't even mention our competitors' names. However, I can see circumstances where the Forbes list information will be of interest to others, particularly when they take the tack that "resisting Microsoft is impossible, they're just too strong." This is not an uncommon sentiment, and I think my remarks about the decline of BG's relative wealth will handily counteract it. >I have one particular (very) large client, for whom I'm doing some strategy >work. Their CIO has a bugbear with the large parts of the FLOSS community, >because they want to engage him in a "religious conversation" about how >FLOSS is the "right way". He wants to have a conversation about what FLOSS >can do for his organisation, adding value and reducing cost. > >A negative campaign about how OOo helped "topple Bill" would dramatically >reduce the chance of ever getting OOo onto tens of thousands of seats in his >organisation.... I'll bet you could present it in a way that would intrigue him! Something along the lines of--"Bill Gates and Microsoft were feared and undefeated by any corporate competitor, but the open source community was able to leverage new technology (the Internet) to develop new paradigms of how software should be built. Just like the Japanese invention of just-in-time production disrupted the big three of Detroit, open source software has disrupted Microsoft. The evidence is right in front of us: once the richest man in the world, Bill Gates has not been able to adapt to the new climate and his wealth is decreasing. This change is not the goal of open source at all, it is simply an easily observed side effect of the accelerating shift to this new method of software development. By no means is Microsoft excluded from adopting open source methodologies for their own software production, but to this point the company has set itself up as the antithesis to the new, and that behavior can not but affect its future viability..." Regardless, you are in touch with him personally so you'll have a much better feeling for which arguments would affect him the most. Every sales discussion turns out to be intensely personal, so having a grab bag of arguments, different ones appropriate for different audiences, is key to wide success. I just wanted to add another one to the zeitgeist of this list, so that someone who finds it appropriate in his or her discussions with possible future users can implement it as needed! >Mark Harrison >Capitalist and OpenSource Developer Thanks for reading! 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