Str ate gic Marketin g Plan - Ope nOffice.

org

SUBMITED BY
Sangeet K Abhishek Verma Praveen P V

Tab le of Con te nts

Ex ecutive Summar y..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ...1 Co mmunity Review..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ...2 History........................................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .2 Goals ..... .... .... .... ...... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .2 Market Review.... .................... .................... ........................................................... 5 Overview ... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .5 Market Seg men tation..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ...... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .5 Disruptive Marketing ..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .......... .......... .......... .......... .7 Product Review..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ...9 Summary.................................................................... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .9 Distribution... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .9 Fea tures an d Ben efits................................. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 10 Competitor Revie w.............. .................... ............................................................ .12 Mic roso ft Office..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... 12 WordPerfe ct Office................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 14 Lotus SmartSuite.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 15 Othe r Office Suites..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ........ .......... .......... .......... ..... 15 Othe r Competitors...................................... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 15 Market Segmentat ion.............. ............................................................................. 17 Introdu ction................................... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ........ 17 Target Markets............................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 17 Non-target Markets.................................................................................... .......... .......... ........ 17 Governm nt... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ...... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 18 e Education... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ........ 19 Public Libraries... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ........ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 21 Not-for-Profits (NFPs)..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .......... .......... .......... ..... 23 Sma ll-Medium Enterprises (SMEs)... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ......24 OEMs..... .... .... ..... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 26 Linu x Distribution s... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .........................27 Review of th External En vironment........ ............. ....... ............. ....... .. ..... ..... ..... ....28 e Soci al an d Cultural Environmen t... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ................................................28 Technol ogical Environmen t............... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 28 Eco nomic Environment .............................. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 29 Pol itical and Legal Environm t................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 29 en St rengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities Threats.... ........ ... ... .... ... ... .... ... ... .... ... ... ... .30 , SWOT Analysis... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ...............30 SWOT Recom en dations..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ........ ..... 32 m Goals and Object ives............................................................................................ 34 Usage Goals..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ........ .......... .......... ..... 34 Marketing Ob jec tive s........................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 35 Marketing Project... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .......................35 St rategic Proposals.............................................................................................. 38 Com unity..................................................................... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 38 m Prod uct ......................... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 38 Price..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ...... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 39 Distribution (Place)................. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 39 Promotion............................... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 41 Appendix - Bu ilding th e Plan............ ..................................................................... 47 Plan for the Plan..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ...... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 47 Strategy Deve lopmen t..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .....47 Con tributors... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ...... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 48 Co pyright..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ........ ..... 48 Version History..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ........ .......... .......... .......... .......... ..... 48 Alphabet ical Index..... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... ..... ....49 References....... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .......... .51

Exec utive Sum ar y m

The Plan looks at the current m rket for offic e productivity suites, at a the major play ers in the fiel d, and seeks to ide ntify trends whi ch wi ll inf luence the market over the next five years. It looks at OpenOffice.o rg's place wi thin the market now, and where it sh ou ld aim to be by 201 3. The analy sis looks at the strengths and weak nesses of the OpenOffice.o rg su ite and of the Commu nity, and how thes e shou ld help influ ence the Commu nity's response to opportunities and threats in the m ketplac e. ar It also looks in detail at the fea tures of OpenOffice.org and the benefits these de liver to customers. From this analysis, the Plan identifies a numb er of target markets whose needs are m ost closely m tche d by the benefits provided by OpenOffice.o rg. a Finally, the Plan sets targets for penetra tion by OpenOffice.org into these target m kets, and lists the main strate gies which the ar Ma rketing Project will use to ac hieve thes e goal s. It looks at the gove rnance of the Community, and the chang es necessary for it to be able to deliver the Plan. Subsequent versions will give implementation milestones for the five yea rs of the Plan.

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Co mmunity Review
History
StarDi vision, the ori ginal author of the StarOffice sui te of softwa re, was founded in Germany in the mi d-1980s. Its StarOffice product developed ov er the next decade into a fully-fledged office produc tivity sui te (sprea dshee t, word process or, grap hics, present ations) comprising over 7.5 million lines of code, and equalling in functionality the ma rket-le ading product (Microso ft Office). The company was ac quired by Sun Microsystem Inc during the summer of 1999, and s StarOffice 5.2 was released in June of 2000 1. That same ye ar, Sun made the moment ous decision to open-so urce2 the produ ct as Op enOffic e.org 1.0 and kickstart the Op enOffice.o rg Commu nity (the Co mmunity) to support, develop, and promote the softwa re under ope n-source prin ciples3. At the same tim e, Sun decided to use the sam e codebase as the foundation for the continui ng com mercial StarOf fice product.

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Goals
The Co mm unityii was set up with the following mission state ment: OpenOffice.org Mis ion Statement s To creat e, as a community, the leading international offi ce suite that will run on all major platform and provide acce ss to all functiona lity and data through open s co mponent based APIs and an XML-based file format.

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Su ccess Crite ria

The Co mm unity's Success Criteria are derived directly from the mission statement: (1)to grow a world wide Community capable of maintaining, developing, supporting, and promoti ng OpenOffice.org (2)t o dev elop OpenO ffice.org to provi de all the features expec ted from a world class of fice productivity suite (3)t o grow the market share of Op enO ffic e.or g to a position of leadership (4)to design Op en Office.org to sup port easy translation into any language (including complex text and vertical wr iting languages), an d provide translations and support in local languages worldwid e (5)t o encoura ge porti ng to any computing platform capable of running the software (MS -Windows - all variants; Unix variants - e.g. Sun Sol aris; Linux - all significant distributions; Apple Mac; etc) (6)t o architect Op enOffice.org on a modul ar basis, callable from all major progr ammi ng language s, an d docum ent fully all APIs4 (7)t o store all OpenOffic e.org data in published XML formats and work wi th stand ards bodies to en sure complian ce with emerging stan da rds for office documen ts5

ii In this doc ument, the term OpenOffice.org is always used to mean the softwar e; the term the Co mmu nity is used to refer to the Ope nOffice.org project. Page 3

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Comm nity Goals u

Financial Independence There are va rious business mod els for sustaining ope n-source activitie s. One model, used by Red Ha t, is to charge customers subscri ption fees for services an d support around free software. Op en- source database co mpan y MySQL has a co mmercial licen ce for customers who want a support contract and a separate open -so urce licen ce6. Other companies, such as toolmaker Zend Technologies, charge for co mmercial produ cts that are more functi ona l than the ope n-so urce versions of their software. The Linux kernel itself is now dev eloped largely by corpo rate em ploy ee s7. As of today (2004), both Op enOffice.org and the Co mmunity are heavily depe ndent on the support of Sun for the ir continued surviva l. The Com munity has set itself a challenge to bec ome completely self-sufficie nt, and rely on volunteer effort and /or funds gene rated by the Comm ity. Given the chan ging patterns within the global un IT industry, this is a desira ble posit ion for the Commu nity to be in. Ho wever, the challenge of rea ching full financial and legal autonomy is not to be underestimate d. Organisational Maturity As of sum er 2004, some projects within the Community are well-suppor ted and m succe ssful - for example, the nat ive lan guage projec ts are providing suppo rt for over 30 languages. Overall the Co mm unity is still immature in te rm of governan ce, s organ isation, and ab ility to rea ch consen sus and mobilise around an agreed plan. The creation of this Strateg ic Marketing Plan by the Com munity's Marketing Project (the Proje ct) is part of this Com munity development process. It is recognised that the Co mmu nity itself will need to change in order to adopt this Plan and those from other projects.

Marketin Go als g
The Project ha s sole or joi nt respons ibility for the first five of the success criteria listed ab ov e. In the five years since launch, OpenOffic e.org has be en highly succe ssful in attracting download s8 and distribu tion. Ho wever, its sha re of the globa l of fice productivity suite market is probably no more than a few pe rcen t9, with Micros oft's Office product (MS- Office) the firmly ent ren ched market l ead er. Studies have shown the diffic ulty of replacing an estab lished brand leader in co nven tional products. For example, one stud y was made of 25 brands that he ld the number one positi on. Sixty years later, 20 of those 25 bra nds still held the number one position. Similarly, studies show that historic ally, the top three brand s in a product cate gory typic ally occupy market sha re in a ratio of 4:2:1. Gartner Group predicted in May 2002 that the Op enOf fice.org cod ebase cou ld eventually reach 10% m rket share10. a On the ot her hand, academ ics such as Christen sen have dem onstrated that under certain condition s, newc om rs can dethrone even the most firmly entren ched e m rket l eader (see A Game Plan for Disruptive Ma rke ting on page 8). The project a be lieves that with targeted market ing, Op en Offi ce.org can fit the criteria of being a 'disruptive techn ology', an d that the ambition of being 'the leading international offi ce suite' is ac hievable wit hin the five year timesc ales of this Plan. By 201 0, the Projec t's goal is for the OpenO ffice.org codeba se to be in a position of ma rket leadership (>50 %) in all its target markets; for it to be the office suite of choice for a ma jority of all PC users; and for it to be in use by a significant pe rcen tag e (>40 %) of all of fice users worldwide. The analysis behi nd these target s is explained in Target 2010 on page 35 ).

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Product Goals
Thanks to the long history of developmen t,Open Office.org is a mature product and indepe ndent revie wers acknowledge that it 'provi de s the co re func tionality that most users nee d'11. The Co mm unity's goal is for OpenOffice .org to stay in this position of me eting all the nee ds of the typ ical 'office' user; to of fer a simple and cle an migration path from significant co mpe titors; an d to be available to use rs on the platform an d in the language of the ir choo sing. The roles of the Marketing Project in me eting this prod uct goal are prima rily tho se of ens uring product development meets the evol ving needs of users, and attracting m mbe rs to the Commun ity who will bec om active in an y aspect of the e e Co mm unity's activities. As explained earlier, this Plan looks at the first of those roles.

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Mar ket Revie w

Overvi ew
It is a truism that a PC is useless without software. Once an operating system has been installe d, a PC can be used to run ap plication software. While there is a m rket for PCs running spec ialised applications, the majority of PCs sold are used to a run one or more 'office' applications for at le ast some of the time. The pot ential market for office suites provi ding these app licati ons is therefore almost as big as the market for PCs , and growing at the same dramatic rate (see Target 2010 on pa ge 35 ). Cu rrently, the market is dominated by the Microsoft Windows (MS -Windows) operating system , and wit hin this platform, the domi nant office suite by far is Microsoft Office (MS- Office) in its differen t versions.

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Mar ket Segmentation

What is an Office Suite
The concep t of an office suite arose out of the limitations of legacy computing technolo gies. Word proce ssors, spreadshee ts, and drawi ng packages each m et ge neric office user nee ds; bundling them together made good commercial sen se. So, in featuresiii terms, an office suite is typically a bundle of a w rd processor, o spread sheet, and presen tations package with a similar look and feel and interoperability. However, in be nefits terms, the Project would define an office suite as a single package that he lps a large population address the most common tasks in the ir wo rking lives. In toda y's internet-en abled of fices sugges ts that the co nven tional trinity of applications is no longer sufficie nt. The Proje ct contends that a single package that he lps a large population address the most common tasks in the ir wo rking lives is inco mplete without at lea st em ail and web browser capabilities.

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Type of Off ice Su ite s

Provid ing different 'flavours' of office suite enables COTSiv softwa re ven dors to achieve marketing goa ls inclu ding targeting different markets, introducing differential pricing, or exten ding the life of products.

Entry Level
These software pa ckage s provi de ba sic 'office' fun ctio na lity within a single offering (e.g. Microsoft Works). The Proje ct co nten ds tha t users are constrained into this segment by one or more limiti ng factor s, such as: price (the user cannot afford anything better); requiremen ts (t he user's nee ds are comp letely met by the product); hardw are (the users PC cannot run bigger software); knowled ge (t he user be lieves they can only use this product); and so on.

iii See Fe atures and Ben efits on pa ge 11 iv COTS = Co mme rcial Off The Sh elf, as opposed to open -source packages Page 6

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Full Function The usual definition of office 'sui te' refers to more powe rful separate packages which inter-operate closely with a co mm on look and fee l (e.g. MS -Office wi th Word, Excel, and Powerp oint). Profes ional s 'Professional' ed itions of office suites add in other pa ckage s, for example, databases and photo-ed itors . Internet enable d Increa singly, customers expect office suites to also provide internet capabilities such as:

web browser / html ed iting email groupware (e.g. shared calen dars)

According to the de finitio ns above, Ope nOffice .org falls betw een the Full Function and Professional market seg men ts, with some elements of internet en ablem nt. e

StarO ice and Op nOffice.org ff e

Sun Microsystem decision to open- source the OpenO ffice.org code base has s' created a de-f acto seg men tation of the market by licenc e, with the same unde rlying co de ba se available under ope n-so urce lice ncing (as OpenOffice.org) and as a COTS product (StarOffice). The two differen t prod uct offerings are targeted at two diff erent ma rket segments, although there is a con siderable 'grey area ' in between. Some typical key different iators are as follow s: Reaso ns for preferring Sta rOff ice to OpenOffice.org A user currently ha s a licenced co m titive COTS product pe Co mp any policy for bids open-so urce software There is a req uirem nt to purchase world-class support from a large ven dor e A com ny needs the securi ty of having a large corporate supplier to sue if pa anything goes wrong A user nee ds the additional commercial products incl uded in StarOffice (fonts, Adabas database, etc. )

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Reaso ns for preferring OpenOffice.org to Star Office A user does not currently have a licenc ed co m titive COTS produ ct pe StarOf fice is not available in the use r's loc al language/ on the ir chosen platf orm An organ isation wants to mi nimise its acquisition cost A user believes in the principle of open -source software An organ isation would like to be able to give aw ay copies of the software (e.g. to stude nts, employees, etc.)

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Other products using the OpenOffic e.org codebase

The Ope nOffice .org open-so urce licen ce allows the OpenOffice.org cod ebase to be used as the basis of other softwa re produ cts, both free or comme rcial (although there are some restrict ions on how the co de can be used). Produ cts have alrea dy em rged based on the OpenOffic e.org co de ba se, for e exa mple, versions targeted at particular sec tors12, or geog raphies13 , or operat ing system s14. Sun Microsystems have also actively enco uraged the emergenc e of co mmercial produ cts based on the cod ebase (AOL Offic e, Novell Office, Lycoris Office, etc) Given the diversity of the open -source development comm unity, it is also ine vitable that othe r developmen t st rea ms will emerge15 . For example, the Ximian 'fork' of OpenOffice.org - has attracted contri butions from the Fed ora and De bian co mm nities, so me of w u hose dev elope rs are uncomfortable with the Co mmunity licen ce / developmen t model, or with software which has any dep en den cies on nonfree software (such as Java). The Project con siders that these developmen ts all contri bute to the ado ption of the OpenOffice.org codeba se, and as such are welcom ed. However, the Projec t's main foc us is on the branded OpenOffice.org product, and as such aim that: s

all use rs of the codeb ase are actively encouraged to give prominence to the fact they are based on the Op en Office.org co debase on a reciproc al basis, the Project should use third party br ands to bu ild produ ct credi bility (AOL is a bigger consumer brand than Op en Office .org or Sun Microsys tems) any improvem nts to Op en Offic e.or g should be fed back into the Commun ity e the Co mmunity should work to remove any barriers wh ich preven t people contributing to the Community

D sru pti ve Marketin i g

Marketing Goals on page 4 noted that delivering the Community's Mission Statemen t mea ns crea ting disruptive change in the marketplac e. The seminal text on disruptive change - The Innovators Solutio n16 provides som strateg y guidelines for iden tifying e target markets: A Gam Plan for Disruptiv Mar keting e e Target only those customers an d markets tha t look unattrac tive to every established competitor. If an idea is sustaining (an improved version of an alrea dy available and popular prod uct ) relative to even a sin gle co mpetitor, the idea will not succeed as a disruption. Try to co mpete aga inst nonconsumption: customers who are curren tly unable to use curren tly available produ cts at all, either becau se the y cant afford them or are too inexperien ced to use them These markets ha ve the most poten tial . bec au se these custome rs will comp are your product to ha ving nothing at all, and so will be thrilled to buy it even if its inferior to curren tly availa ble prod uct s. If the re are no non consum rs available, explore the feas ibility of a low-end e disrup tion instea d: customers who cant use all the fun ctiona lity they curren tly have to pay for and who wont pay premium pric es for upgra ded products. If this isnt poss ible either, and youre not an industry incum ben t, dont invest in the idea .

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When searching for idea s with disr up tive potent ial, look for ways to help customers get done more conven iently and inexpensively what they are already tryi ng to do. Dont inven t new problem for customers to solve - they wont s reprior itise what s important in their lives just bec au se your product is availab le. (It is worth noting that OpenO ffice.org is arguably an even more disr up tive produ ct than these authors envisaged: a produ ct offering similar features to the market lead er but available for little or no cost.) Within the se guideline s, the Project has ident ified a number of market segm en ts whe re the ben efits of using OpenO ffice.org provide a particularly good match to the nee ds of the market. It has also identified a number of seg ments w ere the fit is h less goo d. A detailed anal ysis of the prod uct features of Ope nOffice .org and the be nefits perce ived by users is given below in Features and Ben efits on pa ge 11. The full ana lysis of the target markets is given below in Market Seg men tation on page 18.

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Product
Sum ary m

Review

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OpenO ffice.org suite consists of four ma jor app licatio ns:

Writer - wo rd proce ssor Calc - spreadshe et Impress - presen tations Draw - graphics

Writer also oper ates as a w eb page (HTML) ed itor. These applications were origina lly a single 'de skt op' within StarOffice wh ich has now been sep arated into four application s. This gives them a high degree of commonality (more so than MS -Office, which started life as sep arate packages which have been blended together). In add ition, there are three utilities whi ch operate across the major components:

a mathematical formula editor macro / Ba sic programm ing lang uage Data Access tools for wor king with SQL databases

OpenO ffice.org does not contain:

email / ca len dar tools a web browser a data base (although dBase format tab les can be used out of the box with Op enOffic e.org's Data Acce ss tools)

Indepe ndent reviews rate Op enOf fice.org as ca pable as its co mpetitors in terms of functiona lity 17. How ever, it does lack some end -user 'extr as' such as prin ted manuals, template s, clip-ar t libraries, etc. OpenOffice.org is available for the followi ng platform s:

Mic rosoft Windows (98, NT, ME, 2000 and XP) GNU/Linux Sun Sol aris 8 Operating Environmen t Mac OS X Darwin PPC (with in X)

Some of the newe r feat ures requi re installation of a Java Runtime Environmen t (JRE). OpenOffice.org is available in over 30 languages.

D stribution i
OpenO ffice.org can be do wnloa ded free of cha rge from the Op enO ffice.o rg website or worl dwide mirrors. Many Linu x distribu tions now inclu de OpenOffice.org, although some have removed some functi ona lity for licenci ng rea son s. It is also bundled by so me ha rd/rem ovable disk drive and PC manufacturers. OpenO ffice.org can also be obt ained on CD in differen t forms in different market s:

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some public libraries stock and loan the software comm ercial distributors offer the product for sale it has appeared on cover CDs with magazines it appea rs in software bundles such as the Open CD

Features and Benefits

It is a marketing axiom that consumers do not cho ose a product on the features that it offers, bu t on the bene fits (real or perceive d) that it bring s. This sec tion lists the distinctive fea tures of Op enOf fice.org and the ben efits that these bring to users. Feature Open-source lice nce Benefit No licen ce fees to pay for insta llation or upgrade No licen ce/c ompliance hassles or need for software aud its Can be given away free Source code can be inspected for 'troja ns' etc Ind ividuals or companies can contribute directly to product devel opmen t or supplying a missing fea ture Open APIs Can be included in other software

MS-Office file co mpatibility Easy to migrate Easy to exchang e docu ments with MS-Office users MS-Office look and fee l Crea tes PDFs Operations are sim ilar enough to make migration easy Saves buying Adobe Acrobat What you send is what people receive Issue docum en ts as 'read only' Open XML file formats Data can be ea sily used in ot her softwa re products File format cannot be 'time- expired' by a ven dor

File co nten ts can be exami ned for 'un wanted' conten t using simple PC tools Compression m ans files typ ically are sma ller than e MS-Office eq uivalen ts Long developmen t history Origins as a single integrated product Cross platform Stable product, less liab le to cr ash Op en any file from any application Common user interface across all components Good product to tea ch/learn: learn once, use anywh ere Free to choose where you run it Multiple language support De signed to be multilingual Comm unity suppor t Likely to be availab le in your language Easy to translate Direct access to de velopers

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Feature Co mm unity is not just a cod ing project Not Microsoft Netw ork or single install Advanced user features e.g. styleshee ts

Benefit Lots of possibilities for contri butors Monopoly suppliers ge nera te strong feeli ngs Eq ually suited for home users or institutional use rs Also suited for power users - e.g. Writ er can produce complete books

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Co mpetitor Review
M rosoft Office ic
MS-Office is the biggest player in the office suite market. The product's market domin ance is such that any potential compet itor has to be able to demonstrate a migration path from and interope rability with MS-Office: Migr ation from MS- requires ability to re-use MS-Office documents Office m st be ea sy to use by people alrea dy familiar with MS-Office u Interope rability with MS-Office requires ability to read and write MS-Office documents

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MS-Office has its roots in three quite sep arate software pa ckage s rather than as a single office sui te, an d there are plac es wh ere the joins still show.

Microsoft Inc
Microsoft are a one of the largest co rporations in the world with huge financial reso urces and l ege ndary marketing prowess. Their virt ual monopoly of the desktop PC ope rating system market18 means they have the resources to make mistakes e.g. cove ring loss es in the ga mes mac hine market while they refine their prod uct offering. On the ot her hand corpor ations of this size and market dom ance m ke enemies in a (see box) Som Reluctant Microsoft Customers e

corpor ations who do not like dealing with monop oly suppliers gove rnmen ts who dislike companies with a turnover excee ding their own GNP individuals who resent t he we alth of prominen t Mi crosoft em ployees trading blocs wi th open ma rket / ant i-monopoly policies

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Microsoft Office
MS-Office is sold in a variety of diff erent formats in differen t markets and at differen t tim es. It is also periodically relaunched as an up graded or en hanced product. As many cor porate users sign up for multiyear upgrade cont racts, Microsoft has a considerable interest in allowi ng no more than three yea rs - the ma ximum length of a multiyear contr act - between version s. Microsoft report sales of MS -Office within their 'Informat ion Worker' business segment - an over $1,000 million business in 2004. Mi croso ft recogn ise three separate revenue st ream from the 'Information Worker' business segm s en t: original licen ce sales (approx 40% of total reven ues); licen ce up gr ades / maintenan ce co ntracts (40 %); and softwa re 'bundled' with new PCs (ab out 20%).

Edition s
MS-Office is sold in a variety of diff erent ed ition s, with inc reasing feat ures for inc reasing cost, for example:

Pag e 13

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Stan dard

Excel (spreadshee t) Ou tlook (em ail client) PowerPoint (presentation s) Word (wo rd processor)

Small Business

as Standard, plus: Busine ss Contact Manager (for Outloo k) Publisher (deskt op publisher)

Profes ional s

as Business, plus: XML support (for Word) Acce ss (database)

In terms of functionali ty, inde pen dent reviews agree there is very little to choose betw een Ope nOffice.org and MS-Office 'Standard' for the vast majority of users, although Ope nOffice .org lacks the tem plates, cli p-art etc. bundled with MS-Office.

Platform and Languages s

MS-Office is available for MS-Windows and also as Microsoft Office for Mac (the Mac editions are slightly different from the MS -Windows editio ns). MS-Office is available for over 35 loca lised version s.

Pri cing
Microsoft - the oretically - operates a single price list wo rld wide. However, there are many examples of it offering sub stantial disc ounts when forced to do so to safeg uard market share, while ma intaining the convenient fiction of a single pric e (see Competitive Position below). Large volume en terpr ise customers are also off ered substantial disco un ts19, and in many markets 'educational' versions are available at sub stantial discounts.

Marketin g
Microsoft has a massive marketing budget and promotes its products wi dely throughout the wo rld and throughout all the differen t media type s. Its estimated advertising spe nd is betw een $5,000-$10,000 million pe r annum Spend typica lly . pe aks towa rds the launch of ne w product s / re- launch of existi ng products (e.g. the launch of Windows XP and the Xbox cloc ked up $1,500 million ).

Go als
Micros oft's goal is to dominate the office suite market in the same was as it has domin ated the deskt op operating system market. Do minating the office suite s ma rket does not have quite the same sen sitivities as the operating system market, s giving Microsoft more room for manoeuvre without incurring the wr ath of co mpetition regulators. Recently announced developm ent plans for MS-Office sugg est that Mi croso ft is seeking to create closer integ rat ion between products within the 'Informat ion Worker' product group. This would further increa se the ir com titive 'lock- in' and pe disc ourage migration away from MS-Office to comp etitive product s.

Pag e 14

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Com pet itive Position

Microsoft is finding the need to protect its market share from the grow of ope nth source comp etition. This ha s been not icea ble at the operating system level, with vario us 'knocking' campai gns against open-so urce, and most recen tly (mid 200 4) a hi gh-profile campa ign to 'prove' that ope n-so urce is a more expens ive computing platfo rm than Microso ft. In at le ast one country, this campai gn fell foul of the nat ional advertising reg ulatory autho rity for its blatantly unsupportable claims20. Microsoft has also admitted in a filing to the US Securi ties and Exchange Co mm issions that it is prep ared to use price cutting to defen d market s hare: "To the extent opens source software ga ins increasing m rket accept ance, sales of our a products m y dec line, we may have to red uce the pric es we charge for our a products, and reven ue and ope rating margins may con sequently dec line."21 OpenO ffice.org has also had a part to play here, with Mi croso ft reacti ng to de fen d its market position whe never OpenO ffice.org has threate ned MS -Office's posi tion: Ho w Microsoft has responded to competitive threats from OpenOffice.org
after ye ars of inaction, Mic roso ft has suddenly relea sed new translations of MS-

Office in response to OpenOf fice.org local langu age relea ses22 where OpenO ffic e.or g has proved successful in de veloping markets, Micros oft has effectively reduced the price of MS-Office with t he release of special low cost local editions of MS-Office23

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Word Perfe ct Office

WordPerfect Office is owned by Corel, who like Microsoft, has taken sep arate pa ckages and gradually merged them into an 'office' suite. Corel's package s con sist of a very good wo rd processor (which gives the suite its name ), a per fec tly respec table sprea dshee t, and an alri ght graphics packag ev. The suite off ers similar features to Op en Offi ce.org (e.g. pd f, html, xml creatio n), and works hard at provi ding a smooth migra tion path from MS -Office with various 'com pati bility' modes. WordPerfect retai ns a loy al fol lowing in seve ral niche markets, such as the legal profession in several territories.

Edition s
Basic

WordPerfect (wo rd processor) Quattro Pro (spreadshee t) Presen tations (presen tations)

Profes ional an d Education s

as abo ve, plus Paradox (relational data base)

Platform and Languages s

Su pport in varyi ng deg rees for 'up to 30 languages '. WordPer fect Office is an MSWindows application, alt hough a 'proof of concept' ve rsion of WordPerfect for Linux is in beta testing

vCorel also sell sep arately a well respec ted range of gr aph ics products. Pag e 15

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Lotus SmartSuite
Lotus SmartSuite is ow ned by IBM, and sits somew hat uncomfor tably among their other Lotus family of product s. IBM do not appear to be actively marketing the product, focussing on server-ba sed offerings like Lotus Work place Docum ent s. Lotus SmartSuite features these applications:

1-2-3 (spread shee t) Word Pro (word proc ess or with IBM ViaVoic e) Organizer (pers onal informat ion manager) Freel ance Graphics (presentation graphics pa ckage) Approach (relational data base)

Platform and Languages s

Lotus Smartsuite is available in Global Engl ish (sic), French, German, Danish, Dutch, Itali an , Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Nor wegian, Swed ish, and Finnish. It is an MSWindows application (including installation via MSI, the Microsoft Software Installer), plus a leg acy version is available for OS/2.

O he r Office Suites t
There are a number of ot her minor products such as Han com Offi ce, Ability Office, et c, but few which are genuine mu lti- platf orm and international and none which command a sign ifica nt market sha re.

O he r Com etitors t p
Si ngle- fun ction Of fice Products
There are also products whi ch may be classed as 'imper fect competitors ', such as stand alone wo rd-proc esso rs, sprea dshee ts, etc. The se are not con sidered as direct co mpetition in this Plan, al thoug h they may offer oppor tuniti es for mi gration of existing users.

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Alte rna tive to Deskto p Off ice Su ites s

It is also worth noting that the bene fits provided by office suites can be provided by mech anisms other than the installation of full app licati ons on a PC. Server b sed a There have been a number of attempts to provi de office functio nality from a cen tral server to thin clie nts, rangi ng from dumb terminals, through netwo rk PCs/t hin clien ts, to browsers running on PCs. Su n Mic ros ystems has been a keen proponen t of network PCs in the past24, altho ugh its en thu siasm seem to have diminished of s late. There are rum ours IBM may be readying an of fice suite using this technolo gy IBM's new software is designed to be distributed and acce ssed through a Web server25 . It is not cl ear whether this is different from their Lotus Workplace Do cuments produ ct, which offers word processing, spreadsheet, and presen tation editors that allow users to edit documents even when the editors with which these do cuments were ori ginally created are unavailable26 . As of now, these produ cts are aimed at niche markets, and so are not considered further in this Plan.

Pag e 16

1 2 3 4 5 6

Internet based A number of attem pts have been made to provide office functi onality over the internet27. It is possible that by 2010 wireless an d other tech nologies may have dev eloped suffic iently for this to be a viable al ternat ive. If this happens , then OpenO ffice.org could well form the 'engine behind such a service. How ever, it is ' co nsidered too specu lative to be co nsidered further in this Plan.

Pag e 17

Mar ket Se m tation g en

Introd uction
This sec tion of the Plan attem pts to identify groups of users who have simi lar nee ds for an offi ce productivity product. Those who se needs are most clos ely matched by the benefits provided by OpenO ffice.org (see Fe atures and Ben efits on page 11) will be the most likely candidates for using the produ ct.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Target Markets
Se lection of target markets is gu ided by two main criteria:

do the ben efits of Op en Offic e.or g provide a better m tch to the m rket's needs a a than the competitors? does the market have the characteristics of an adopter of a disruptive innovation (see A Gam e Plan for Disruptive Marketing on page 8)?

This Plan argues that the ben efits provided by Op enOf fice.org are a particularly good match to the nee ds of the following target markets:

gove rnmen ts (espec ially in the developi ng world); ed ucation establishmen ts (schools, colleg es, universities); public libraries; small/m dium enter prises (SMEs); e NFPs (Not-For-Profits char ities, voluntary sector, et c); OEMs - Own Equipment Manufacturers buil ding PCs with pre-i nstalled software, especially for the low-cost / home end market Linux distributions looking for an office suite to 'bu nd le'

These are the markets wh ere the Co mm unity should aim to achieve market domin ation by the OpenOf fice.org branded product.

Non-targ et Mar kets

In add ition, there are many markets which will be targets for the OpenOffice. org co de ba se un der differen t branding (such as StarOffice). For example, multinational co rporat ions wo uld be a more obvio us target for a fully commercially supported product like StarOf fice than a comm unity suppor ted product like Open Office.org (see StarOffice and OpenOffice.org on pag e 7). These organisations are more likely to have a heavy investment in co mpe titor products and will requ ire assistance duri ng migration. They will proba bly also ha ve curren t vol um e purchasing ag reem ents in place. For these markets, adopting an office suite based on OpenO ffice.org is a sustaini ng innova tion rather than a disruptive one. However, it is also recognised that the re will be cases w ere this simplistic h target/non-target split will not apply. For example, 'Governmen t' is a target market in the OpenOffice list: howe ver, 'first world' gov ernmen ts m y prefer dea ling with a a co mmercial organ isat ion.

Pag e 18

Government
Description of the sector
Governments at all leve ls (supra-national; nat ional / fed eral; regional / state, local) especially in develo ping co untries

2 3 4 5 6 7

Needs and Benefits

The table below shows how t he bene fits of Op enOffice.o rg ma tch the nee ds of the gov ernmen t sector: Needs Must display open ness, compliance, and value for money Benefit Effectively free to acquire No lice nce/c omp liance hassles Can be given away free Proba bly a legacy Microsoft user Need to distribute docu m nts e widely Easy to migrate Sav es buying Adobe Acrobat Wha t you send is what people receive Issue docum ts as 'read only' en Long te rm da ta reten tion Mu lti- ethnic suppo rt Worried ab out US software co mpanies You own your data - fut ure proof Likely to be avail able in you r language No hidden ba ck doo rs, trojan s, etc Monopoly suppliers gene rate strong feeli ngs

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Ro t es to Market u
Most likely to be recept ive to lobbying through local activists, opinion formers , political party me mbers. Req uires Co mmunity me mbers on the ground an d familiar with the market.

Special Needs
StarOf fice is a realistic alternative in most afflue nt co untri es. Ope nOffice.org's ea se of translation is a strong plus point in multi-lingual commu nities, especially if the translation can be sponsored by the government body co ncerned .

Pag e 19

Education
Description of the sector
Includes all ed ucational establishments: school s, colleg es, unive rsities, etc.

2 3 4 5 6

Needs and Benefits

The table below shows how t he bene fits of Op enOffice.o rg ma tch the nee ds of the ed ucat ion sector: Needs Skills taught should be as 'gen eric' as po ssible Being able to give away software is a good 'selling poin t' for courses Need to dem onstrate value for money Build co-oper ative skills across the internet Worries abo ut licen ce compliance / ability to aud it PCs Need to give stude nts marketab le skills Benefit File and look an d feel compatibility with MS-Office OpenOffice.org software can be given away free open -source licenc e mea ns acquisition cos ts are zero international community with mu ltiple opportunities for parti cipat ion No licen ce/ compliance hassles Simil ar eno ugh look an d feel to MSOffice Easy to exchan ge docum nts with MSe Office users Good produ ct to tea ch/lea rn: lea rn once, use anywh ere Needs to be availab le in loc al languages (cou ld be translated as a co mmunity effort) Needs to be simple to administrate Likely to be available in your language Easy to translate Netw ork installatio n availab le

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Ro t es to Market u
For state run schools, a two prong ed attack has proved succ ess ful:

gove rnmen t via politicians and civil servants grass roots through the schools themselves.

Each levers the other: gove rnments are more convinced if the grass roots respons e loo ks goo d, grass roots confide nce is enhanced by governm nt leadership. e Ci sco, Oracle, Microsoft all have Academy program es they are bringing into m schools. Th eir vulnerability is that they foc us on post 16. There is also ECDL/ICDL, but aga in it's foc ussed on older studen ts. The Project reco mm ds we should aim to get in ea rlier with 7 an d 8 yea r olds. en These children can use Op enOffice.org; there is no need to wait until they are 16. The Project cannot co mpete head to head with companies w ith the reso urces of those ab ove. The Proje ct can be smarter in a market they rea lly don't un derstand.

Pag e 20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

As with all other sectors, there is no substitute for knowi ng and unde rsta nding how the market wo rks, being in tune with the culture and speaking the langu age of the culture.

Special Needs

an Access style database there is a lot of co ntent and supp ort mate rial for MS-Office and very little for OpenOffice.org difficulty in netwo rk installations on Windows XP lack of brand awareness, confusion between StarOffice (which is available free under Sun's Edu catio nal Licenc ing sc hem e28 ).

Pag e 21

Public Libra ries

Description of the sector
Len ding librarie s, both privately and pu blicly funde d. Sm all libraries with no budget and tea ching faciliti es are likely to be more rece ptive in the early stag es rather than big libraries that are used to big donations. All libraries are in sco pe , inclu ding school libraries, volu ntary organisa tions, tea ching hospitals, community co lleges, et c.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Needs and Benefits

The table below shows how t he bene fits of Op enOffice.o rg ma tch the nee ds of the public library sector: Needs Value for money Benefit No lice nce fees to pay for installation or up grade No lice nce/c omp liance hassles Can be given away free Need to be co mpatible with MSOffice Easy to exc hange documents with MS-Office users Operat ions are similar enough to make migration ea sy Should be able to loan software to the greatest number of users Multi-lingual fea tures useful Availab le on many platf orms Likely to be avail ab le in you r language

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Ro t es to Market u
Bob Kerr has written a com prehensive HOW-TO29, based on his experienc e of pe rsuading the public libraries in Edinburgh, Scotland to stock OpenOffice.org CDs. This is a model case stud y in explori ng the nee ds of a market, develo ping an understanding of the custom r's pe rspec tive, and tailoring a solution that is e acc eptable to them. Some of Bob's key poin ts are summa rised and par aphrased in the box below. Su pp lying Public Librarie s
Trust: you have to persuade the library you are a credible source Liability: libraries worry about incurring liability for technical support, viruses,

copyright issues, replacemen t me dia, etc.

Long evity - the library ha s to be convi nced of that it is worth their time and

effort to stock the CD and that it is 'bo rrowe r-proof'

Prec onceptions: just like ot her markets, libraries also need convincing how can

sof tware this good be free Bo b's document is a model of its type an d is recomm ded reading in full for all en Project mem rs, especi ally MarCons. be

Pag e 22

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Special Needs
Ag ain, the box below is a poor sum ary of rec ommendat ions in Bob Kerr's HOW-TO: m Producing open-source CDs for Publ ic Lendin Libraries g
Where poss ible the CD cover should follow the gu ide lin es set out in the ISBN

Users Manual published by The Internat ional Standard Book Numbe r Sys tem Agenc y, (International Edition). On the cover of the CD there should be a cle arly printed disclaimer co vering suppor t, liability, etc All CDs must be pressed or high qua lity CDs and not CDR or CDRW, preferably in DVD covers The library ca nnot endor se an y product. Advert ising on the cov er to an unco nnec ted third party is not accep table. A valid and respec ted ven dor of replacemen t pressed CDs should be made known to the Library. On ly major relea ses will be co nsi dered for the libr ar y catal ogue.

Pag e 23

Not-for-Profits (NFPs)
Description of the sector
Organisations run on non-commercial status: charitie s, voluntary organ isations, non -governm ent al organi sations, an d so on. The size of this sector often co mes as a surprise to people used to dealing with comme rcial organisations - e.g. there are 700,000 registered NFPs in Australia.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Needs and Benefits

The table below shows how t he bene fits of Op enOffice.o rg ma tch the nee ds of the NFP sec tor: Needs Need to minimise costs Cann ot afford licen ce issues / audits Usef ul to be able to sha re wit h volun tee rs Proba bly leg acy MS-Office users Need to be co mpatible with MSOffice users Cann ot afford re-training Cann ot afford ven dor-enforced upg rades May need to op erate in multiple, possib ly local mino rity languages Benefit No lice nce fees to pay for installation or up grade No lice nce/c omp liance hassles Can be given away free Easy to migrate Easy to exc hange documents with MS-Office users Operat ions are similar enough to make migration ea sy File forma t can not be 'time- expired ' by a ven dor Likely to be avail able in you r language Easy to translate

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Ro t es to Market u
NFPs can often be rea ched via fundi ng bodies, digital divide bodi es, and circuit riders (volu nteers providing IT suppor t for NFPs).30

Special Needs
Like SMEs, many NFPs have minimal in-h ouse IT expertise and requ ire easy-touse products. Howeve r, they are used to the ide a of comm ity wor king and are un more receptive to commu nity sup port.

Pag e 24

Small-Medium Enterp rises (SMEs)

Description of the sector
Variou sly known as Sm all-Medium Enterprises (SME s), Sma ll Med ium Businesses (SMBs), this sec tor also ha s a wide variety of de finition s, but also is a highly signifi cant sec tor of most co untri es' economies (43% of GDP in South Africa31; 49% of the workfo rce in Australia , etc) . This sec tor is attrac tive to open-so urce marketee rs as it is both price- sensiti ve and below the threshold for most COTS volu me purchase agreemen ts.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Needs and Benefits

The table below shows how t he bene fits of Op enOffice.o rg ma tch the nee ds of the SME sec tor: Needs Need to minimise costs Cann ot afford licen ce compliance issues / aud its Usef ul for em ploy ees to be able to use at hom e Proba bly leg acy MS-Office users Need to exchange documents with MS-Office users Do n' t wa nt to have to retrain staff Ability to send docu m nts via e email as pdfs is useful Benefit No lice nce fees to pay for installation or up grade No lice nce/c omp liance hassles Can be given away free Easy to migrate Easy to exc hange documents with MS-Office users Operat ions are similar enough to make migration ea sy Sav es buying Adobe Acrobat Wha t you send is what people receive Issue docum ts as 'read only' en Do n' t wa nt to be forced by ven dors to upg rade Trouble- free oper ation essential File forma t can not be 'time- expired ' by a ven dor Stable product, less liable to crash

Needs to be in the local l angu age Likely to be avail able in you r language Easy to translate May be temp ted by full comme rcial sup port
12 13 14

Sam code a e

vailable co mmercially

Ro t es to Market u
Local bu siness developmen t agenc ies; ed ucation establishm ent s provi ding 'st art your own business' courses; SME networking organisations.

Pag e 25

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Special Needs
A rule of thumb is that the threshold for employing full-time IT professional is around 30 users. This m ans tha t many SMEs do not ha ve the IT specialists to tap e the standard ope n-source support networ ks of on -line ma iling lists, support forums, et c. OpenOffice.org is tech nically a m ch simpler produ ct to sup port than say an u open- source file, print, and ma il server, but availability of loc al rapid sup port even on a comme rcial basis can be key to winning business - especially if help is needed with data migration from anot her product.

Pag e 26

OEMs
Description of the sector
PC manufa cturers / builders supplying PCs with pre-installed software 'bund les'

2 3 4 5 6

Needs and Benefits

The table below shows how t he bene fits of Op enOffice.o rg ma tch the nee ds of the OEM sector Needs De liver the best PC 'bu ndle' at the lowest co st Benefit No lice nce fees to pay for installation or up grade No lice nce/c omp liance hassles Can be given away free Potent ial purchasers may be legacy MS-Office users Easy to migrate Easy to exc hange documents with MS-Office users Operat ions are similar enough to make migration ea sy Any value-added fea tures ad d to attrac tiveness of product, e.g. ability to create pdfs Do n' t wa nt sup port issues Needs to be avail ab le in loc al lang uage Avoid cumb ersome licen cing terms Sav es buying Adobe Acrobat

Stable product, less liable to crash Likely to be avail able in you r language Not Microsoft

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Ro t es to Market u
The largest OEMs of PCs currently enjoy close relationships with Mi croso ft - ind ee d, the relati onship is so close that it was legally co nstrained in the US courts under Judge Thoma s Penfold Jackson's judgement in a M croso ft ant i-trust case32. i Unfortunatel y, this jud gem nt did not cover office software. e Ap plying disr uptive marketing rules, Op enOffice.org is likely to find grea ter acc eptance among OEMs aspiring to usurp the likes of Dell etc rather than among the curren t 'top 20'.

Special Needs
Ease of installatio n is seen as key to this sector - OpenOffic e.org nee ds to eq ual Micros oft's OEM Pre-I nstallatio n Kits (OPK) in ease-of-use for OEMs.

Pag e 27

Linu x Di st ributions
Description of the sector
Linuxvi is increasingly being rec og nised by mains trea m IT pundits as 'rea dy for de ploymen t on the des ktop'. OpenOf fice.org is current ly the only fully-featured offi ce suite available for this platf orm. Linux users also tend to be familiar with the way the ope n-source community operates. Software profess ionals using Linux are also an important potential source of develope rs for Op enOffice.org.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Needs and Benefits

The table below shows how t he bene fits of Op enOffice.o rg ma tch the nee ds of open- source advoc ates: Needs Must meet com mun ity's op enso urce definitions Need acc ess to so urce Benefit LGPL licenc e; OASIS mem ber for XML file formats Sou rce code freely available Indivi duals or co m anies can contri bute p directly to product development or supplying a missing fea ture Can be included in ot her software Reliable, fully-featured product May wish to join in Community activities Must not be Mic rosoft Stable product, less liable to crash Lots of possibilit ies for co ntributors Monopoly suppliers gene rate strong feeli ngs

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Ro t es to Market u
To date, most ma jor Linux distributio ns have be en happy to accept the OpenO ffice.org source and inclu de it in their distribu tions.

Special Needs
Different distributions have diff erent packaging formats (.deb, .rpm, etc). Building binaries in all the se formats can slow dow the relea se process and also increases n the storage requiremen ts on downlo ad mirrors etc. Some distributions refuse to include any non open-so urce depen denci es in their distributions. As Ope nOffice.org is not certified with an open -source Java runtime, this has led to so me distributions disab ling the parts of OpenOffice.org wh ich require a JRE.

vi More accuratel y, GNU/Linu x Pag e 28

Rev iew of the E xtern al En vironm en t

This sec tion of the Plan looks at tren ds in the outside wo rld which could impact OpenO ffice.org and the Com munity using the comm on Soci al, Techn ological, Environm ent , and Politic al (STEP) mod el33 . These factors can co nstitute either threa ts or opport uniti es (or in some cases bo th) to OpenO ffice.org and/or the Com unity. m

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

Social and Cult ural Environment

Social factors include the demogr aphics and cultural factors which affect customer nee ds and the size of pot ential market s. Some social fact ors include:

the world's biggest poten tial markets (e.g. China) are show ing a keen interest in ope n-source software34 the open-source community co ntinues to ge nerate ot her high qu ality, crossplatform, multi-lingual software products the cost of provid ing local lang uage support for increasing num rs of smaller be markets cannot be justified by conven tional co mm ercial software houses PC users increasingly expect PCs to ha ve office software installed at the time of purchase the average user's need for office software is being met co mfortably by the fea tures of curren t products as email and web brow sing becom com onplace in office s, users will expect e m these applications to be included in the definition of an 'office suite' people are becomi ng more co mfortable with the concept of online commun ities as ways of wor king and co- operating around the world in many territories, wo men are an 'emerging market' for IT/internet . Women app ear to be more open to talking about the community surrounding opensource software. This is particularly true if they ha ve chil dren who are interes ted in computers, an d have conce rns ab out employm nt for older children e there is a ten den cy for employers to specify (e.g.) must have MS -Word skills rather than must have word proc essing skills which ma y deter poten tial users

Technolo ical Environment g

OpenO ffice.org can be expected to ben efit as the concept of ope n-source software beco m s more wi dely understood and acc epted. Deve lopment of the internet e infrastructure will m ke acc ess to the software ea sier an d open up new pos sibilities a for involvement in online comm ities un

the Mic roso ft monoculture is raising an awaren ess of the dan ge r of viruses as Linux becom es mainstream other open -so urce products like Open Office.org will bec om more acceptable e spread of broadba nd ma kes it easier for users to download the product, access web -based supp ort and participate in Comm unity activities the cost of producing CDs is declini ng steadily enabling cheap distri bution of OpenOffice.org the sheer qua ntity of code (7.5 million lines) in Op enOffice.org constitutes a formidable barrier to en try for new com titors pe web services may evolve to provi de radically new ways of satisfying the user needs which are currently met by desktop office suites with the spread of broadband and the internet genera lly, users ma y find other wa ys to access offi ce func tiona lity (e.g. from a server via a brows er)

Pag e 29

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Ec onomic Envi ronment

As office softwa re becomes an increa singly m ture market, price becomes a inc reasin gly import ant as customers treat the product as a com odity35 m

the price of software is becom ing an increasi ng percen tag e of the purchase price of new computers there is an em barrassmen t factor that two of the world's richest top ten individuals owe their wealth to Microsoft conven tional softwa re licence fees are unaffordable in man y parts of the developing world the free lice nce simplifies the spread of Op en Office.org across country, trading bloc, or tariff ba rriers Small /Me dium Enterprises (SMEs) are an increa singly important sec tor in developed ec onomies36 Sun Microsystems may lose the ability or desire to fund non-revenue gen er ating activiti es such as the Comm ity un

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Politic al and Legal Enviro nment

Increa sing wo rries abo ut the role of the US in the world and distrust of multinational co rporat ions m y be expected to help the spread of open -source software. The a inc reasin gly aggressive pursu it of IPR by large corpo rations is designed to cause FUD (Fear, Uncert ainty, and Do ubt) among pot ential open -so urce users and co ntributors, but equ ally may prove counterproductive as the awa reness of opensource grows.

9/11 effect - co mpanies and gove rnmen ts less lia ble to trust their computer system an d data to US co rporat ions post Afghanistan and post Iraq s ope n-source software allows develop ing countries to take greater cont rol over their system s an d not have to rely on the good inten tions of a large, foreign company. ope n-source offers an opport unity for coun tries to grow co mputer skil ls among their own wo rkforce en vironmental regulations are increasing pressure to prolo ng the life of computer eq uipmen t in m rkets like the EU a stea dy trickle of bad publicity from EU and US court cases is tarnishing the reputation of Microsoft the monopolist licen ce violatio ns, pate nts, an d other IPR issues are bei ng pursued with increasing severity there is believed to be a high volume of unli cenced softwa re in use, even in 'develope d' markets (e.g. around 30% of busine ss users in Australia 37 ) the US Patent Office is granting paten ts to corporations who can afford to submit app licatio ns even if they blatantly fail the 'prior art' criteria 38

Pag e 30

1 2

Streng ths, Wea knesse , Op portun itie , s s Threa ts

SWOT Analysis
This sec tion provide s a Stren gths, Wea knesse s, Op port unities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis, listing the

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

inter nal strengths and weaknesse of the Commu nity and Op enO ffice .org; and s opp ortunities and threats faced by OpenOffic e.org due to the changes in the external en vironmen t (see Re view of the External Environmen t on page 29)

Str eng hs t
The Co mm unity and OpenOffice.org benefit from the follow ing internal reso urces and capab ilities:

Op enOffic e.org is released under an open- source licen ce meaning it is free to ac quire and distribute the licenc ing structure mea ns Op enOffice.org can benefit from Com unity m involvem ent backing from Sun Microsystem m ans there is a dedicated professional s e developmen t team and other support for the Community and product the Co mmunity has an active and ent husias tic membership, especially in the native language projects Op enOffic e.org's origins as a sin gle product has created a tightly-integr ated product suite Op enOffic e.org has no co mpetitor with com arable functionality in several p platforms / lan guages the func tionality provided by OpenOffice .org is comparable to the market-leading product Op enOffic e.org has proved easy to translate into different languages Op enOffic e.org uses open file formats natively within the product an d is an active play er in the OASIS standards work Op enOffic e.org offers good file compat ibili ty with other common office products

Weak e sses n
The Co mm unity nee ds to be w ary of the following internal issues:

the Open Offic e.org source co de is relea sed under an open-source licen ce mean ing it can be incorpor ated into ot he r products within the restrictions of the licen ce the depen dence on Sun cau ses suspicion among some poten tial Com unity m suppor ters in t he open-source world the Co mmunity is immature in go vernance and organisation the Co mmunity has no self-gen erated finances lack of a professional managemen t (espec ially project managemen t) structure means that the enthusiasm of volunteers with in t he Community is not alwa ys harnessed effect ively the size of the cod ebase ma kes it difficult for new hackers to master the Open Offic e.org br and na me is confusing (it sounds like a website) Op enOffic e.org does not incl ude/lacks integration with other software (e.g. email, web browser)

Pag e 31

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

Op enOffic e.org does not ha ve macro or Ba sic compatibility wi th MS-Office which can hinder the migration of 'pow er users' some new functio ns in Op enOffice.org are be ing written in Java, requiring a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) on the user's PC the con straints of wor king cross- platf orm can ma ke for a less than perfect 'fit' to individual platforms the generic cross-platform Op enOffice.org installer is not as easy to use as nat ive platform installers Op enOffic e.org lacks end user 'extras' such as hard co py manua ls, templates, clipart, etc. Op enOffic e.org does not come in an OEM pre- installation kit for PC supp liers Op enOffic e.org does not ha ve a vis ible local support structure which is often claimed to be essen tial for the SME market for many MS-Windows users, open -so urce is synonymous with Linux, meaning they do not realise Op en Office.org is also available for their platform as a full-featured o ffice suite, Op enOf fice.org has a heavy 'footprint' (espec ially with a JRE), making it less suitable for the curren tly 'un der-served ' users who wo uld be a natu ral target for disruptive technolo gy marketing

Opportu niti es
The fol lowi ng exte rnal fac tors provide opportunities for Op enOffice.org:

the adoption of Linux is encoura ging people to think more about open-source the open-source movem ent is showing hea lthy growth wo rld wide there is a rang e of cross-platf orm, mu lti-l ingual, open -source software available for poten tial bundling opportunities with Op enOffic e.org (email clie nts, web browsers, data bases, groupware, etc) the arrival of the Micros oft's XP range of products is forcing users onto an other round of upgr ades Mic rosoft's increasing effor ts in licence enforcem ent encourag e users to see k al ternat ives - especially users without valid licen ces the prolifera tion of viruses etc targeted at Mic rosoft software is encouraging users to look at alternatives PCs are now becoming widesprea d in coun tries where MS-Office licenc es are simp ly unaffordable39 the lack of hard-copy manu als ma kes Op enO ffic e.or g an attractive target for third-party technical authors

Thr eats
The fol lowi ng exte rnal fac tors constitute potential threats to Open Office.org:

the Co mmunity is highly dependen t on Sun Mi crosys tems who ha ve not been noted for software in the past the presence of two products in the marketplace using the same codeb ase causes conf usion (OpenOffic e.org and StarOffice) the open-source licen ce regime means an yo ne can rebrand an d redistribute the code under a new na me the of fice productivity suite marketplace is totally do minated by Microsoft with its MS-Office range of prod ucts Mic rosof t can set de-facto industry standards in areas such as look and feel, file formats Mic rosof t can afford to target spec ific markets with low cost variants of MS-Office Mic rosof t can use its virtual monopoly of the deskt op operat ing system market to facilitate ot her produ cts such as MS-Office M rosof t's roadm ap for MS-Office shows closer integ rat ion with other Microsoft ic products, ma ki ng migration more difficult Pag e 32

1 2 3 4 5

developmen ts in patent leg islation are creating a clim ate of 'FUD' around open source users are expec ting 'office suites' to inclu de internet software - em ail, web browser, possibly cale ndaring

SWOT Recom endations m

Introduction
Matching internal strengths and weakn esses to external threats and opportunities gives four class es of str ategic recommendat ions for the Com unity: m S rengths t Opportunities O-S: 'No br ainers' where OpenOffice.org's internal stren gths are a clear fit with external oppo rtunities T-S: Areas where OpenOffice.org is well equipped to defend its market again st external threa ts Weaknes es s O-W: Areas where OpenOf fice.org nee ds to make special efforts to m et external e opp ortunities T-W: Area s wh ere OpenOf fice.org's w aknesses e make it more vulnerab le to external threa ts.

6 7 8

Thre ats

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

O-S recomm ndations e

Op enOffic e.org shou ld capitalise on its position as the only fully-functioned , integ rated open- source office produ ctivity suite in the Linu x market the Co mmunity should build a centre of expertise in native- lang uage deploymen t, creating a 'best practice' proc ess which can be deployed for new langu ages the Project should plan promotional activities specifica lly targeted at users faced with an en forced upgrade from Mic roso ft. The message shou ld stress the similarity of look an d feel, ability to read MS-Office file formats, and additional benefits over MS-Office (e.g. tigh ter integ ration) the Project should plan promotional activities specifica lly targeted at users wo rried ab out being caught with 'pirate' copies of MS -Office. The message should stress the similarity of look and feel, ab ility to read MS -Office file format s, add itional ben efits over MS-Office (e.g. tighter integr atio n), and the guaranteed ope n-source licen ce the Project is ideally placed to target 'current non-co nsum rs' - a classic market e for m rket disrupters a

O-W recommendation s

the Co mmunity should improve the packaging of Op enOf fice.org to make it easier for MS-Windows users to migr ate to Op en Office.org than to upgr ade to MS-Office XP the Project nee ds to commu nicate that Op enOffice.org is for MS-Windows users too Op enOffic e.org nee ds to develop an OEM pre-installation kit for PC supp liers the Co mmunity should work with the open-s ource commu nity to develop clip-art, templates, etc the Co mmunity should produce 'nat ive' Linux versions (rpms, debs, etc) the Co mmunity should produce a 'Java free' version to red uce demands on the deskt op and give greater accep tability to Linux distributions (until Java is ope nsourced40 ) Pag e 33

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

the Co mmunity should prio ritise size red uction / performance enhancemen ts (or possibly an 'OOoLite') for low specific ation PCs

T-S recommendat ions

The Co mm unity shou ld put significa nt effort into understanding Sun's goals for StarOf fice and Open Offic e.org, and selling the ben efits to Sun of their continuing support of the Comm ity un The Co mm unity shou ld supply commu nity-developed translations etc for StarOffice The Co mm unity shou ld produ ce significa nt collatera l to demonstr ate an d aid ease of migr ation for MS-Office users The Co mm unity shou ld respond to Mic roso ft 'ba rgain basement' variants of MSOffice by stressing the full-fu nction/o pen-source attributes of Open Office.org

T-W recomm ndations e

The Co mm unity shou ld seek to strengthen its go vernance and managemen t so i t is capable of bec om ing self-sufficien t The Co mm unity shou ld work to build unde rstan ding of the codeb ase in the ope nsource devel opmen t comm nity u The Project nee ds to mai ntain cle ar documentation on the StarOffice vs Op enOffic e.org questions The Co mm unity nee ds to broaden the functionality of Op en Offic e.or g to inclu de email, web browsin g, etc

Pag e 34

Goals and Ob jective s

Usage Go ls a
Targ t 2 0 e 01
The Co mm unity's goa l is that Op enOffice.org becomes the product of choice for users of office softwa re, on any major platform in an y lang uage . How ever, it is recog nised that office suites are a m ture product, and so users with a produ ct a current ly installed on their PCs will probably be quite co mfortable with it. The decision to choose Ope nOffice.org is most likely to be exerci sed at spec ific 'trigger points' in users' dec ision-making:

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

users w ho have not yet selected /installed an of fice suite (incl uding those acquiring a new PC) and realise they ha ve a need for one users of single function applicat ions looking for ad ditional functionality (e.g. word proc essor users who find they also need a sprea dsheet) users w ho have unlicenc ed ('pirate') editions of comme rcial software users who are facing an en forced 'en d-of-life' upgrade for their curren t product

The Co mm unity's goa l is for Ope nOffice to be the product of choice at these trigger points, rea ching a 50% selection rate by 20 10: Year 20 03 20 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 09 20 10 Rate 1% 2% 5% 10% 20% 30% 35% 50%

18 19 20 21

Today, there are estimated to be around 600 million PCs in use; by 20 10, the number cou ld be over 1,000 million41; Based on these fig ures and a 50% selection rate by 2010, Op en Office.org's target is to be installed on over 400 million deskt ops by the end of 2010, a market share of over 40%:

OpenOffice.org Market Share

1000 900

millions of units

800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2004 2005 2006
Predicted PCs in use

2007

2008

2009

2010

Copies of OOo installed

Pag e 35

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Measuring Pro gress

Unlike comme rcial organisations, Ope nOffice .org cannot m asure sales direc tly. The e variety of distribution chan nels (see Distribution on pag e 10) means that an accura te count of installatio ns is also impractical - for example, an increa singly succe ssful policy of en cour aging mirroring will red uce the nu mber of down loads measured from the Op enOffice.org site. With an ope n-source pol icy, it is also impossi ble to enf orce compulsory user registration (even if that w deemed as de sirable by the Comm ity). un Cu rrently, the Co mm unity Statistics Project is maintai ning what statistics it can for downloa ds, reg istrations, etc. It is hoped that with time tren ds can be spo tted and conclu sions drawn. Possib ly the Proje ct may be in a positi on to commi ssion resea rch by the end of the Plan period. However, if the Community's usag e goa ls are being met, Op enOffice.o rg shou ld be featured increasingly in indep ende nt surveys of the office suite market, press co verage, etc. There are so me examples of this already in Nor th American studies: the SME Market (6% market sha re July 2003)42, and the large busine ss market (8% March 200 4)43.

Mar keting Objectives

In order to reach the usage goa ls, the Project believes the following marketing objectives m st be achieved: u

Op enOffic e.org mu st have achieved global brand awaren ess Op enOffic e.org mu st be available for any deskt op platform with more than a 10% global m rket s hare a Op enOffic e.org mu st be available in every lang uage used by more tha n 10% of compu ter users Op enOffic e.org mu st be available to 90% of computer users for less than one hour's local average wages Op enOffic e.org m st be a com nent of every ge neral purpose Linux distribution u po

In terms of the product accept ance curve, OpenOffice.org users curren tly fall bet ween the inno vators and ea rly adopters. By 201 0, Ope nOffice.org must have broken through into the majority users in order to m et its overall sales targets. e Co rrectly identi fying the matu rity of a target m rket is important if promotion activities a are to be succ es sful.

Marketing Project

Figure 1 Product Accep tance

39 40 41

The detailed strateg ic propos als to ac hieve these objectives are given be low. Responsibility for imp lementi ng the propos als will be with the various me mbers of the Proje ct as below:

Pag e 36

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Project Leads
Own the process for creat ing an d maintaining the Strateg ic Marketing Plan. Responsible for issuing cen tral press relea ses; maintaining the Project pa ges on the OpenOffice.org we bsite and the central library of collat eral (English language); recruitm ent of and liaison wi th MarCons; recr uitmen t of and liaison with Observers to work on cen tral resources; liaison wi th other Co mmunity projec ts and the Com unity Council. m

Marketin Cont acts (MarCon s) g

Responsible for participating in c reating central resources and then ad apting them to the ir own geographies /markets - transla tions, loc al ma rket intelligence and promotion; distribution channels to their geograp hy/ market; nam ed co ntacts for local/spec ialist press en quiries about Open Office.org, the Project, or the Co mm unity in an y press releases; fee dback local market information to the Project Lea ds; liaison with any Native Lang uage projec ts key to the ir area s. What do Mar Cons do? A MarCon:
is available and respon ds rea dily to indivi dua ls an d organisations that co ntact

them with rega rd to Open Office.org.

liaises wi th t he Marketing Project Lea ds in represen ting, and coo rdinating

relationships with Open Office.org.

conducts research and is aware of Op enOf fice.org marketing opportunities in

their area, e.g. poten tial use rs, conferences for OpenOf fice.org to atten d etc.
distributes OpenOffice .org press releases if applicable to their region. conducts presen tations and seminars if reques ted. shares ideas, thoughts, plans, wha t has worked and not wor ked with

OpenOffice.org.
uses the OpenOffic e.org Marketing Project as a resource and requests

assistance and idea s to assist them to market Op enOffic e.org in their region. joins the Marketing Proje ct an d offers their specialist skills to contri bute to the goals and ac tivities of the Projec t. subscribes to or mon itors dev@m arketin g.ope nof fic e.org and com@nat ive-l ang .openo ffice.org.

34 35 36 37

The relation ship between the MarCo ns and the Project Leads is illustrated in Figure 2 be low, which shows how bo th parties co-operate in producing a Strate gic Marketing Plan (t his document) which forms the starting poi nt for a Market Plan f or the target market.

Pag e 37

provide specialist knowledge to

Project Leads

MarCons

Targe t Market Plan Strategic Marketing Plan

who produce

tailor ed to targe t m rkets by a

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Figure 2 MarCons and Project Lea ds Ap plying this process to the creation of central reso urces such as promotional materials prevents duplicati on of work and en sures a co nsisten cy of m ssage. e

Marketin Project Observers g

The title 'Observer' comes from the nam e of a role in the SourceC ast software used by the Co mm unity's web site. 'Obser vers' do much more than 'observe' - they are full participants in all Marketing discussion groups and on-line activities and are the front line troops in Project activities. Spe cific respon sibilities: provi ding specialist skills (market resea rch, competitor intellige nce, graphics, copywriting, translati ng...); wo rking either on cen tral (Project Lead) or loc al (MarCon) marketing activitie s; fun damental resource for the promotion of Ope nOffice.org.

Pag e 38

Strategic Proposals
Com unity m
Governan ce
This Plan is concerned prima rily with the Marketing ac tivities of the Comm ity. un However, the Project believes that the Co mmunity will not be capable of de livering many of the se propos als without significantly improvi ng its overall governance, starting from the Co mm unity Council. For example, the proposa ls concerning the website requi re cross- proje ct (and possi bly cross Sun/Comm unity) deci sion making capability. This level of organi sational maturi ty has yet to emerge from the ge nerally chaotic 'indecision by mailing list' proce ss that Co mmunity mem ers are b familiar with just now. De livering the Plan req uires an effec tive governan ce body such as the Commun ity Co uncil to be in place by the end of 200 4.

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Product
Brand name Revisit the OpenOffice.org brand name and relationship to rebranded COTS variants StarOffice, Novell Office, AOL Office, etc Encourage all produ cers of software using the OpenOffice .org cod ebase to display 'OpenOffice.org inside' style branding. 1.1

1.2

If any of these producers have strong brands of the ir ow n, leverage the se to reinforce OpenOf fice.org (especial ly in the early yea rs of the Plan)
16

1.3

Brand values De ve lop brand values: Availability (value for money, mu lti-lingual, mu lti- platform, open file format) Qua lity (stab le, reliable, well- established, virus resistant) Frien dly (familiar user interfac e, leg acy file compatibility, community ba sed ) 1.4

17

Quality Work clo sely wi th the QA project to prioritise / ens ure valid bugs are squashed and report as a 'good news' item 1.5

18

Product Development Set strategic direction for what the lead ing office suite shou ld contain by 2010, and investigate Op enOffice.org variants (e.g. OOo Professional) 1.6

Look at adding co mplem en tary componen ts to Op enOffice.org throug h inter working with co mplem entary open-so urce produ ct s which share our brand values for: database email cal en daring The Community shou ld work with the open-source community to develop clipart, templates, etc

1.7

1.8

Pag e 39

the Co mmu nity should prio ritise size reduction / performance en hancements (or possibly an 'OOoLite') for low specific ation PCs

1.9

Take direc tion of the requ ests for en hance men ts and turn into a cohe rent short 1.10 term produ ct de velopmen t plan with the developers.
1

Sup or p t Publicise the work of the vario us s upport communities Rationalise the mass of user documents, HOW-TOs, etc scattered around the OOo site 1.11 1.12

Packaging The Community shou ld build a centre of exper tise in native- language deploym t, crea ting a 'best pract ice' process which can be deployed for en new languages 1,13

The Community shou ld improve the packaging of Op enOffice.org to make it easier for MS -Windows users to migr ate to OpenOffice.org than to upgr ade to MS-Office XP

1.14

Create an automated instal led kit for OEMs (OPK - OEM Pre- installation Kit) Insta llation proc ess shou ld be more tailored to particular platforms, e.g. selfins tallers for MS -Windows; 'native' Linux versions (rpms, deb s, etc)

1.15 1.16

The Community shou ld produce a 'Java free' version to red uce de mands on the desktop an d give greater acc ep tability to Linux distributions ( until Java is ope n-so urce d)
3

1.17

Price
The Project must produce convinci ng mater ials to explain the open- source value proposition: "if this product is so goo d, how/why are you giving it awa y free?" 2.1

Standards should be set for CD pricing by approved distributors (see CD-ROM distributors on pag e 41)

2.2

De ve lop the concep t that the price of OpenOffice.org is contri buting back to the Co mmu nity (part of the Marketing Strate gy for the Community).
4

D stribution (Place i )
Ex plore the logistics of giving something away - which can be just as co mplex as the logistics of a 'paid for' product. The Proje ct has to consider the full lifecyc le of: getting the insta llation med ia to the end user installation on the PC putti ng the user in touch with whatever community resources are required to ens ure Op enO ffic e.org delivers the expected be nefits to the user.

2.3

3.1

1 2 3 4

Virtual distribution
OpenOffice.org website The Ope nOffice .org website is the key to the distribution process, not only hosting the master downlo ads, but also signposting the oth er distribution chan nels. The downlo ads sec tion must be as simple to find and use as possible: the model is an Amazon-style 'one click download' for all users in the ir language / platform of choice. 3.2

Mirrors The Project must en co urage as many high-quality mi rrors as possible, inclu ding emerging peer-to-pee r netwo rks like BitTorrent 3.3

6 7

Phys ical Media

CD-ROM distributors Through MarCons, the Proje ct should sign up CD distributors in all major geographies, especially those wh ere broadban d is not available. 3.4

The Project should be prep ared to en dorse distributors who sign up to certain minimum stan dards (prici ng, qua lity) and offer free links from the OpenOf fice.org web site in exchange .

3.5

8 9 10 11

OpenO ffice.org branded software has also be en inclu ded in co mmercial office 'bund les' 44. While we lcome, these are less desirable from a Project perspective as they are more expensive, and dilu te the OpenO ffice.org brand ing . CD-ROM giveaways (ma a zines etc) g , MarCons should identify the main 'cover disk' magazines in major geographies, keeping records of the magazines ' cove rage of Op enOffic e.org, and work with them in advance of every prod uct laun ch to en sure full coverage of the new release. 3.6

The Project should build a library of 'Starting wi th OpenOffice.org' articl es that can be offered to magazines to form the ba sis of articles to accompany cover disks.
12

3.7

Public Lending Libraries Ma rCo ns should work to ensure OpenOffi ce.org is availa ble in every public lending library where these exist in their territory45. 3.8

13 14

OEMs
Linux distributions
MarCo n(s) should be appointed for the Linux market and work to en sure OpenOf fice.org is included with all mainstream Linux dist ros (spec ialist 'minimal Linux' distros are aiming for a different market). 3.9

15

Pre-installed software on new PCs

The pre-install ed market is key to ado ption by home users. Op enOffice.org should target to sign up at least one 'big nam e' brand by 2005, and a further brand by 201 0. 3.10

Pag e 41

1 2

(see also the OPK action unde r Packag ing on pag e 40 )

Prom otion
Mes ag s e
As the Op enOffice.org comm unity does not have funding, fund ed promotion current ly is limited to 'piggy-backing' on Sun's promotio nal act iviti es for StarOffice plus whatever free promotional activity the community can co me up wit h. The main challenge he re for the Project is to make the best use of the resources it has, and to come up with an integr ated approach, with all activities supporting the brand values following the sam rules and sprea ding the same message. e The Project must agree the brand values with the Co mm unity Co uncil and communicate them tirelessly to the Commun ity 4.1

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

The Project should target 'current non-consumers' - a clas sic market for market disr upters

4.2

OpenOf fice.org shou ld capitalise on its position as the only fully-functioned, integ rated open- source office productivity suite in the Linux market

4.3

The Project nee ds to communicate that Ope nOffic e.org is for MS-Windows users too

4.4

The Project should respond to Microsoft 'ba rga in basem t' varia nts of MSen Office by stressing the full-fun ct ion/o pen-source attribu tes of Op enOffice.org

4.5

The Project should plan promotional activities speci fically targe ted at users faced with an enforced up grade from Microsoft. The message should stress the simil arity of look and feel, ability to read MS -Office file form ts, and a add itional ben efits over MS-Office (e.g. tighter integration)

4.6

The Project should plan promotional activities speci fically targe ted at users wo rried about bei ng caught with 'pirate' copies of MS-Office. The message should stress the similarity of look and fee l, ab ility to rea d MS-Office file format s, additional benefits over MS-Office (e.g. tighter integ rat ion), and the guaranteed open-source licence

4.7

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

OpenOf fice.org Website

The Ope nOffice .org site is curren tly hosted by Co llabnet using the SourceCast co ntent management system The funding for the site is provided by Sun, including . host ing, bandwid th for downloads, etc. SourceCast is designed speci fically to support remote collaborat ion on open-source projec ts, on similar lines to Sou rceForge46.

Internal Project Users

Various projec ts - including the Marketing Proje ct - use the project tools provided by Sou rceCa st for discussion groups, file repo sitories, etc. In this cas e, the site is serving interna l project users, and the cont ent generally fits well wit hin templates provided by SourceCast

Pag e 42

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

S op Window h However, www.Ope nO ffic e.o rg is not just a site for internal users. It is also Ope nOffice.org's main shop window to the wo rld, for telling potential users abo ut the product and the Co mm unity, how to acquire, install, and use the product, where to go for support, and how to become an active mem be r of the Community. Without an exte rnal adverti sing budget, this is the advert ising reso urce for the Project (see Adve rtising on pa ge 44 ). Sou rceCa st is not as well suited for this general hosting activity, as the CMS tem lates rest rict the look and feel of the site, and Co llabNet also forbid the use of p scripting languages such as php47 to gen erate dynam ic content . Recommen ations d The 'Shop Window' element of the website is a key reso urce for the Projec t's promotional activit y. This Plan reco mmen ds that:

http://ww w.o penoffic e.o rg should host the shop win dow pag es free from the restrict ions of SourceCast. The content of the pag es shou ld be ow ned by the Marketing Projec t, wi th the mech anics provided by the Web site Project.

4.8

NL-projects wo uld be enco uraged to ha ve their own NL shop-windows in this sam area e

4.9

the internal project pages are gene rally well served by SourceCast, but should be moved to a new 'root' URI such as http://co mm unity.openoffic e.o rg. Individual projec ts wo uld have URIs as now (e.g. http://m arketing.openo ffice.org)

4.10

14

Marketing Project The Marketing Project pages should host as now the activities of the Project, plus the English langua ge maste rs of all the Project collateral (see Produ ct Marketing Material on pa ge 45). 4.11

NL-projects wo uld be encour aged to maintain translations of the Project collater al in their own project pag es.

4.12

15 16 17 18

Publi c Rela tions and Publ icity

This is the main focus of the Promotion activity of the Projec t, as unlike paid-for advertising it does not require funding. The most important principle is to en sure that everyth ing the press sees or hears is m aged and is con sisten t. an It is therefore recommended that only Project Lea ds or Ma rCo ns ac tually communicate with the press. This include s all areas of PR, such as corporate anno uncements, defensive PR, and marketing PR. 4.13

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

PR Tools

news releases fea ture stories and interviews exclusives op inion pieces photos speech es or appearances at seminars, conventio ns, etc.

Pag e 43

1 2 3 4 5

local, regional or national talk shows an d other progr ammes online chats and forums comm unity involvemen t lobbying activit ies social responsibility activities

6 7 8 9

All press releases shou ld contain the three key elemen ts:

a message related to Op enO ffice .org's features and ben efits a hook to make it newswort hy and interesting a link to drive people to the OpenO ffice.org web site

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Proposed tac tics for OpenOf fice.org PR activities Prior to a product release, en cour age the press to download late beta snapshots Find a good spokes person to help promote OpenOffice.org Always ensure that the Op enOffic e.org we bsite is featured in the relea se Include the geek press, trade press and consum er press Make sure there is some gen uine 'new s' Sched ule press releases so that vario us media sources publish informa tion that builds on itse lf an d progressive ly includes new tidbits of information De velop an interes ting and fun idea cent ered around a relea se or upgrad e - e.g. the naming of new releases Offer co-sponsors hips for media to OOoCon

21 22 23 24 25

Direct Marketing
For budget reasons, the only cha nnel available to the Project for direct marketing is email, which in these days of global spam is a highly sensitive area. How ever, though the vol untary reg istr ation process there is a channel for building an 'opt-in' email address database. It is proposed that this should be used primarily for: 'pa ss it on' - spreading Ope nOffice.org usage from innovators to early adopters etc (see Figure 1 Product Ac ceptance on pag e 36 ) en couraging uptake of new relea ses en couraging users to become Commu nity mem bers en couraging users to atten d Op en Office.org conferences 4.14

26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Advertisi ng
Without a bud get, the main advertising platform for the Project is the Ope nOffice.org we bsite. All other promotional activity should be ai med at ma xi mising the expos ure of the w site. However, it is important that the Project eb maintains ot her materials such as web ba nners, produ ct flyers and posters, product packaging and inserts which can be used if an oppor tunity arises (see Produ ct Marketing Material on pa ge 45 for det ails of specific actions).

Pag e 44

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

The Projec t's advertising promise for OpenOffice.org is that the software will meet all a user's nee ds for office software. and the Co mm unity will always be the re for them . The tone of the ad vert ising is alw ays positiv e, emphasising that one da y all software will be written like this. As OpenOffic e.org moves into the mainstream (see Figure 1 Product Ac ceptance on pa ge 36) the tone will need to cha nge from appea ling to innov ators to reassuring the mainstream.

Promotions
Promotio ns in marketing jargon are 'incen tives to act', for encouraging potential co nsumers to try the product, or to en courage loyal custom ers to increa se their consumptio n. Clearly, some of the mainstays of comme rcial promotions such as bu lk buys ('buy one get one free' ) or coupons ('5 euro off with this coupon') simply don 't work in the co ntext of Open Office.org. However, there are oth er promotion opportuniti es. For examp le, giving away OpenOffice.org CDs at freshers' fairs at col leges and unive rsiti es - or better still, arranging for the colleg e to give aw ay the software as part of the student induction.

Conference s
OOoCon Conferen ces require a lot of planning, resources (money and people), and can flop without proper targeting, but they are a recogn ised part of the open-so urce process and a mea ns for the cognoscen ti to judge the health of a projec t. Fortunately, Sun recog nise the importance of the annual Op enOffice.org Conference (OOoCon) and facilitate it with financial and other resources. Project leads should take responsibility for the succe ss of OOoCo n, either by personal involvem nt or by appoin ting a conference organiser (for e responsibilities see box below) 4.15

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Project responsibilities for a succes ful OOo Con s

key respons ibility - making sure there is a compell ing reason for people to

at ten d
making sure there is something newsw orthy (PR) making sure OO oCon add ress es specific market ing objectives

Third Party Conferences Bu dget is a problem he re again - howe ver, MarCo ns sho uld be aware of activities going on in their area where they might be ab le to put Op enOffice.o rg forwa rd. For exa mple, vol untee ring to speak at so ftware conferen ces, professional association s, et c. MarCons should actively recr uit, suppor t, and keep a reg ister of vol unteer speakers for meeting s, etc 4.16

33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Visual aids and presen tation material should form part of the Project Library (see Marketing Project Library on page 46 )

Product Ma rketi ng Mat erial

Supporting product literature and other Commu nity collat eral materials is key to many of the Projec t's efforts. These items must presen t the Ope nOffice .org image and m ssage very cle arly and profess ionally. Not only is the text and wo rding of the e literature important, but also the vi sual image and quality that it projects. Pag e 45

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Item th should be held in a central Mar keting Project Library s at

Graphics: logos, web ban ners, CD-ROM labels and jewel case insert s, 'built with

Op enOffic e.org' images, posters White Pape rs: Product Flyers aimed at vario us audien ces; Release Notes Screen shots: various platforms, language s Impress presen tat ions ab out Open Office.org Case Studies: for each targe t market Review s: links to (favourable!) reviews in 'quality' on-line sources, espec ially those outw ith the open -so urce 'usual suspec ts' Press Pack: a co nvenien t bun dle for time- starved journalists Premium Items: artwork for mugs, T-Shirt s, pens, carrier bags, etc

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

In literature, it is critical to highlight and emphasize the ben efits of Op enOffice.org and not just the spec ifications and feat ures. Each piece should consider these issues:

W hat will the literatu re be used for (e.g. background on open -so urce / overa ll Commu nity inf ormation / OpenOffic e.org fea tures an d ben efits / reas ons to join the Co mmunity / etc.)? Who is the audien ce for each piece (e.g. curren t or potential Com unity m members / curren t or poten tial users / end use rs or decision makers for groups of users / etc.)? What is the state of maturity of that particular ma rket (see Figu re 1 Product Accep tance on pag e 36?) Who will develop the piece? what brief will they be given by the Project Lea ds and MarCons? What is the copyright po sition of the arti fact ? When will the piece be come obs olete? what does it rep lace?

The Project Lea ds will be responsible for:

commissioning artifacts from the artwork project, indivi dual contri butors, etc

4.17

28 29 30 31

QA'i ng submissions and maintaining the se in a central library

4.18

MarCo ns can either use the se 'as is' or customise for individual markets.

Prem ium Item s

Premium items are the freebies given away at trade show or other events. Again , s as the re is no budge t available for the se: Project Leads should commis sion the artw ork for produ cing mug s, T-Shirt s, baseb all cap s, pens, carrier bags, etc from the artwork projec t, and mai ntain it on the project site in the hopes that local finance will be available for specific even ts. 4.19

Pag e 46

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Marketin Project Members g

The roles of the vario us mem rs of the Proje ct are outlined elsewhere (see be Marketing Project on page 36). Howe ver, it cannot be stressed enough that the succe ss of the promotional activity of the Project will depend on the enthusiasm and com itm m ent of Proje ct me mb ers, and their unde rstanding of the Strate gic Marketing Plan and the OpenOffic e.org propo sition. The number one prio rity of the Marketing Leads should be the health of the Project. No opp ortunity shou ld be missed for encoura ging particip ation in Project activities. Project Leads should set up a mech anism for tracking this state of hea lth, e.g. 4.20 by recording the number of project mem bers, the num ber of ac tive participants in disc ussions, etc.

Techni cal Authors

Project mem bers should encourage authors to produce wor ks ab out OpenOffice.org 4.21

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

("I really liked your Dummies Gu ide to xxx - have you ever thought about doing one for OpenOffice.org?"):

seeing books about Op enOf fice.org helps sprea d the brand name books gener ate revie ws - further media expos ure for the brand name users w ho w n't use software wi thout hard copy user manua ls can be steered o to third party bo oks

The fact that OpenOffice.org does n't have pape r manuals ma kes it more attractive to third party au thors. Project Lea ds should be able to supply statistics abo ut the number of users (i.e. potential read ers). 4.22

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Complement ary Produ cts

OpenOffice.org is designed to be easy to call from other app licat ions an d uses open file formats. This shou ld make it an obvious partner for other software (espec ially bu t not exclus ively open -source). For example, the GRAMPS Gen ea logy software can export reports in Writer format.

End Users
Finally, it m st never be forgott en that satisfied users can be the best ambassado rs u for OpenOffice.org. Peop le like givi ng presents, and the Project can encourage this be haviour with app ropria te messages48: "Giving is good" mes ages s
We want you to share this with your friends,relative, schools, libraries, charities,

gove rnmen t rep resent atives Who ha ve you shared this wi th today? I'm not buying, I'm sharing W hat languages do you share in? Give a little, get a lot It's all for you, and your frien ds too

Pag e 47

Pag e 48

Appendix - Building th Plan e

Plan for the Plan
This ve rsion of the Plan - 0.5 - w prep ared for presen tation to OOoCon 2004. The as 0.5 signifies that it is intended to be rough ly halfway along the road to completion, bo th in terms of timescale and degree of accep tance by the Comm nity. u Figure 3 Plan for the Plan be low illustrates that the majority of the wo rk to this point has concent rated on deve loping the strate gy through de bate and brai nstorming sessions, mostly among the MarCons. Once broad agree men t is reac hed that the strategy is co rrect, then the detailed work beg ins of turning the act ion points into a proje ct plan with prioriti es, owners, and timescales. This work will start with strategy works hops at OO oCon 2004 and will continue through deb ate in the Project ma iling lists.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

OO oCon 2004 V0.1 V0.5 V0.9 V1.0

MarC n o Relau ch n

MarCo n Deb t a e

C mmun ty o i Debat e

C om munity C uncil o Adoption

S rategy buildin t g S a tr te gy deliv ry e

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Figure 3 Plan for the Plan

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

The inten tion is that this work will be comp lete ready for version 1.0 of the Plan to be formally adopted by the Commu nity Council by the end of 2004. The work will co ntinue to be driven by the Project Lea ds, with the active ass istance of the who le Comm unity - especially those who are me mbers of the Project.

Strategy Develop ment

Figure 4 Strategy Development Process below illustrates the strands of work which have gone into this Plan , an d how the vario us sec tions link togethe r. It is intended as a roadm p for anyone wishing to take pa rt in the ongoing strateg ic de velopmen t a work.

Pag e 49

External Env iro nment Review

Produ ct Review F tu ea res and Ben efits

Market Review

C petit or om Revi ew

So cial, Te chn ical, Econ omic, & Political

Marke t Segmen ation t

Com unity m Review

Strengths Opp ortuni tie s Threats

S-O S-T

W eaknesses
W-O W-T St rategi c Propo sals

Miss ion St atement Su ccess Criteria Sales & Mark et Goals Marketing Proj ect

Produ ct

Price

Prom tion o

Place

Marketing Project St ruc ture

St ra tegic Prop osals and Im lem t ation p en Plan

Figure 4 Strateg y Development Proc ess

1

Contri butors
This ve rsion of the Plan w as developed using the MarCon discussion list and co mpiled by John McCreesh. Thanks to all the MarCo ns; special than ks to: Christ ian Einfeld, Colin Cha rles, So phie Gau tier, Ian Lynch, Bob Kerr, Jacqueline McNally, Sa nkars han Mukhopadhay, Charles Schulz, Ryan Singer , Louis Suarez- Potts, Stefan Taxhet, and apo logies to those w hose na m ha ve be en accid en tally omitted from es this list.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Copyright
This document is copyrigh t 2004 by John McC reesh jpmcc@o penoffic e.org for and on behalf of the OpenOffice.org Marketing Proje ct. All rights reserved. It is inten ded to relea se a fut ure version of this document under an app ropriate open- source licen ce.

Versi on History
No 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Date 11 -Jul-04 Notes Issued to Jacqueline for initial com en ts m

06-Au g-04 Revised after first two MarCon brainstorms 22-Aug-04 Further revisions and sec on d issue to Jacque line 11-Sep-04 17-Sep-04 Gold relea se pre-OO oCon 20 04 OO oCon 2004 - first public relea se

Pag e 50

Alphabeti ca l Index
1-2-3 A Ability Office Acc ess Advertising AOL Office Ap proach B BitTorrent C Ca se Studies CD-ROM Distributors Magaz ine covers CD-ROMs Co deb ase Building community support Hacking Lines of code Market share Othe r products Co llabNet Co mm unity Council D De bian Direct Marketing Distribution E Excel F Fed ora Freelan ce Graph ics H Hancom Offi ce J Java Java-free OpenOffic e.org Linux distributio ns Op en -source developers Op enOffic e.org depende ncy on Runtime Environment L Libraries, public lending Linux Distributio ns Kernel Office suites Target market for Op enoffice .org Lycoris Office M 15 MarCons And PR Role 15 Market Seg mentation 13 Market Share 43 Measu ring 7 Target 15 Ma rketing Project Mem bers 40 Produ ct Development Website Microsoft 45 Microsoft Office Comp etitive Position 40 Goals 40 Marketing 40 Pricing Sales reven ues 33 Mirrors 30 Mission statement 2 MySQL 3 7, 38 N 42 NL-Projects 36, 38, 41, 47 Novell Office O 7 OEMs 43 Office Suites 9 En try Level Full Function Internet based 13 Internet enabled Professional 7 Server ba sed 15 OOoCon OOoLite OPK 15 Organizer Outlook 32, 39 27 7 31 9 P Paradox Pow erPoi nt Premium items Presentat ions Press Pack Project Lea ds 40 Promotions Public Relations 9 Pub lis her 3 Q 32 Quatt ro Pro 27 7 R Red Hat Reviews Pag e 51 42 36 17 35 3, 34 46 4 42 12 14 13 13 13 12 40 2 3 3, 30, 36 7 40 5 6 16 6 6 15 44 33, 39 26, 31p., 39 15 13 14 13 4 5 14 45 36 44 42 13 14 3 45

S Screen shots Sm rtSuite a Sou rceCa st StarDi vision StarOffice History In Education Target Market Vs Op enO ffice .org Statistics Project STEP Factors Success Criteria Su n Acquisition of StarDivision Backing for the Commu nity Colla bnet Ed ucat ional licen cing Network PCs Promotional activi ties for StarOffice Support for OO oCon SWOT Anal ysis

T 45 Techn ical Authors 15 V 42 ViaVoice 2 W 2 Web site Hosting 20 Ownership 17 6 Word 35 Word Pro 28 WordPerfect 2 X Ximian 2 XML 30 Ben efits of 41 In Mission Statem ent 20 MS-Office support for 15 WordPerfect support for 41 44 Z 30 Zend Technologies

46 15

41 42 13 15 14 7 10 2 13 14 3

Pag e 52

Refer ences
1. http://ww w.o penoffic e.org/abo ut_us/mi leston es.html 2. OpenOffic e.org uses a dual licence strategy for the source code: the GNU Gene ral Public licenc e and the Su n Indu stry Stan dards Source lice nce. See http://ww w.o pen office.org/lic en se.html 3. See for examp le What is Op en Source on htt p://www.oss-i nsti tute.org/ 4. There is a good explanat ion of this and UNO tec hnology at IBM's Developer Works site: http://ww w.ibm.c om/developerworks/library/co -uno.html 5. http://ww w.oa sis -open.org/commit tee s/tc_h ome.ph p?wg_abbrev =office 6. For example MySQL AB, developers of the popular open -source database MySQL: http://ww w.m ysql.co m/co m ny/ pa 7. An drew Morton sppeaking at a m ting sponsored by the Forum on Tech nology and ee Innovation in July 2004 - http://gcn.com/v ol1_no1/daily-updates/266 41-1.html 8. Monito red by the Statistics Project at http://st ats.openo ffice.org/ 9. unpublished paper from Erwin Ten humberg soo_ooo_market_sha re_anal ysis_draft_21 july2004.sxw 10. Reported in http:/ /www.itwo rld.com/nl /ln x_desk top/0530200 2/ 11. For example the co mparison of Office suit es in ZDNet UK Jun e 20 04 http://review s.zd net.co.uk/software/ productivity/0,39024195 ,39158 410 ,00 .htm 12. e.g. Logotron's SchoolOffice (ed ucation sec tor) - http://w ww.logo.co m at/view/sc hool /c office.html 13. e.g. KaiOffice (Chine se) - http:// www.kaisource.com/kaio ffice68en/i ndex.html 14. e.g. SotOffice (LBA-Linux)- http: //ww w.sotli nux.o rg/e n/sot office/i ndex.php and NeoOffice (Ma cOS) http://www.neooffic e.org 15. The ooo-bu ild parallel fork is a good thing: it brings the notoriously unapp roachable OpenOffice.org developm t proc ess closer to wh at the rest of the commu nity expects to en deal with - Linux Weekly News Aug 19,2004 - http://lwn.net/Articles/975 49/bigpage 16. The Innovato rs Solutio n, Christen sen and Raynor http://thei nnovatorss olu tion. com 17. e.g. Op enOffic e.org is one of the main preten ders to the Micr osoft Office throne, one of the few tha t can m sure up to one of the most formi dable office suites in the world ea http://ww w.itreviews.c o.uk/software/s23 6.htm 18. Typical estimates give MS -Windows 95%, Ma c OS 3%, GNU/Linux 2% 19. ...Microsoft increa singly off ers lice nses to the larger key accounts at very attractive cut prices to beat the competition http://ww w.researchand markets.co m/rep ortinfo.asp? repo rt_id=222210 &t=o&c at_id= 4 20. Micr osoft has been rep rimand ed over misleading advertising by the Ad vertising Standards Aut hority (AS A). The UK watchdog upheld complaints abo ut a magazine advert wh ich claimed that the open-so urce operating sys tem Linux was more expen sive than Windows. http://news. bbc.co.u k/1/h i/tech nology/36 007 24.stm 21. Micr osof t: Linux is a threa t, it ma y mean prices cuts and less bu siness for us Jo Best, Silico n.com 03-Se p-04 http://software.silic on.com/o s/0,39024651 ,391 23685,00.htm?nl=d200 40906 22. Mic roso ft Pushes Translat ing Its Programs into Developing Nations' Languages - Seattle Times July 20 04 http://ww w.n ewsgleaner.c om/site/ news. cfm? newsid=1231503 5&B RD= 2340& PAG=740&d ept _id=22696 4&rfi=6 23. Mic roso ft has slashed prices on Windows XP and Office to join the Thai governmen t's 'peopl e's PC' project CNet Asia June 2003 http://asia.cnet.com/ new tech/s ystems/0,39 00115 3,39 136847 ,00. htm s 24. e.g. the now disc ontinu ed Javastation produ ct 25. IBM's new softwa re is design ed to be distribu ted and acce ssed through a Web server TechRepublic May 2004 http://techrep ublic.co m co m/51 00-626 5-5209 067 .html . 26. IBM Develop erwor ks, Jun e 2004 - http:/ /www106 .ibm.com/developerwo rks /lotus/library/arti cle/lwp20 -features/ 27. For example Anyw are Office - http://www.anywareoffic e.com 28. http://ww w.sun.co m/p roducts-n- solution s/edu/soluti ons/staroffice.html#Ed ucat ion 29. Open Source Len ding CDs in Libraries: Ho wto, Bob Kerr, 2003 http://ww w.o pen office.org/nonav/issues /sho watt achm ent.cgi/11 83 8/Open% 20 Source% 20 CD%20in%20libraries%20How to.pdf

Refer ences
30. Circuit Riders: A tec hnology support solution for the volu ntary sec tor http://ww w.las a.o rg.uk/cg i- bin/pu blisher /display.cgi?1358-7102-937 92 +computanews 31. Open source in t he sma ll and med ium bu siness sector, Ga vin Dudley, Septem ber 2004 http://ww w.t ecton ic.co.za/ view_fea ture.ph p?viewid=2 32. Micr osoft broken up - BBC Busine ss Ne ws Wednes day, 7 June, 2000 http://news. bbc.co.u k/1/h i/bu si ness /781 852 .stm 33. See for examp le http://ww w.quickmba .co m/ strategy /PEST Analysis.htm 34. You can see that in places like China wh ere they have this hu ge software market - $35bn in the next couple of years, accord ing to IDC. They are endorsing Linux and paying stipends to the cor poratio ns there to use Linux, in an effort to try and keep the software bu siness inside Chin a. Carol Stafford, IBM wo rldwide vice presiden t of Linux sales, July 2004. http://ww w.vnu net.c om/anal ysis/1156787 35. See for examp le Nicholas Carr's now inf amous Harvard Business Review article IT Doesn't Matter in May 2003 htt p://www.nichol asgcarr.co m/ articles/mat ter.html 36. e.g. Within Austr alia the small business sector comprises around 97 percen t of all private sec tor bu sinesses and employs 49 percent of the total work force or some 3.3 mi llion people. http://ww w.sbd c.co m au/documen ts/ 5.3/BECreview2003 Com unitiesofEnterpr ise.pd f . m 37. Estimates from the Washington-ba sed Business Softwa re Al lian ce in July 2004 http://aus traliani t.news.co m.au/artic les/0,720 4,1007171 7%5e1 612 3%5e %5en bv% 5e ,00 .html 38. e.g. Oracle's 2000 patent application for co ntent m nag em a ent system granted in 2004 s http://patft.uspto.gov/netac gi/np h- Parser? Sec t1=PTO1&S ec t2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/s rchn um.htm& r=1&f =G&l =50&s1=6,74 5,238.WKU.&OS=PN/6,745,238& RS=PN/6,745, 238 39. In Vietnam, the cost of MS-Office represent s 1.4 years' average loc al wa ge s - Miguel de Icaza, OOoCon 20 03 40. For insights into this see http://w ww.it -analysis.com/a rti cl e.php?arti cleid=12142 41. Mic roso ft esti mates widely reported in the press in July 2004. 42. Jupiter Me dia rep orted in http:/ /y ahoo.pcwo rld.co m/y ahoo /artic le/ 0,aid,111616, 00 .asp 43. Forrester Research repo rted in http:/ /www.consul tingtim es.co m/a rchiv es/2 004 _0 3.html 44. e.g. PC Trea sures Inc's Bu siness Works Suit e http://ww w.pctrea sures.c om/bu ndles/ bussw orkplus0 4.h tm 45. e.g. Scot land, Europe http://ww w.t hereg ist er.co.uk/200 3/12/ 18/ope noffic e_cds_liv e_ for_lendin g/ 46. SourceForge at http://www.s f.net is the best known and most widely used rep ository of open -source projec ts. Several Op enOffice.org 'sp in-offs' are hosted the re such as OOoExtras 47. php - php Hy pert ext Proc essor - is a comm on open -source scri pting language for web sites see http://w ww.ph p.net 48. Thanks to Bob Kerr for this list http://marketing.op enoffic e.org/servlets/ Rea dMsg?list=dev&msgId=14 89564