Marketing is the key term. Sure free software is free as in beer but the marketing machine behind Microsoft is the key. This was well demonstrated with the Mojave project and the new commercials with the 4 year old girl sending a picture via Email. Linux does all this for free and in fact these folks were handheld or shown a video of the actions they were not stuck in front of a screen and told figure it out. So Could we do a Linux Mojave project, absolutely I am sure you search youtube for Linux and cool  and you will see alot of cool stuff but without the marketing machine what does it all equate too. We ride a fine line between promoters and elitest. There are those who think everyone should and others who don't wanna see a bunch of stupid n00bs taking from their coolness. I would imagine a Linix really needs a blast of marketing from a big player in the neighborhood of what IBM did. Something to give us the WOW factor.





On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Jason <jasons@spatafore.net> wrote:
On Mon, 2009-02-23 at 09:59 -0700, James Finstrom wrote:
> Microsoft plans to boost the(ir) economy by offering free tech
> training to 2 million people over the next 2 years via training
> centers and WBT. They wish to train (indoctrinate) 2 million people to
> bring up the "technical standings" in the US.
> http://www.crn.com/it-channel/214502376
>
> What will be the Free Software response to this?
>

The free software response to this is that you don't have to pay a dime
to learn how to use it. That is the very basis of the FOSS community.
While MS will *teach* people, will they be providing all the necessary
tools to teach with?

For example, will MS give everybody a fully functional, non-expiring,
full-featured application suite for every situation they will be
teaching?

Of is their goal to give the training (via CBT) for free while charging
the people for the resources, at reduced pricing of course?

Think of it this way...I am MS...I want to increase revenue. I already
dumped my money into R&D...how do I recoup?

I setup a training camp with tons of CBT's that I use internally for my
people. Then I tell people I will give them those CBT's. However, in
order to effectively use those CBT's, those people need to buy licenses.

Now think of this...you want to setup Server 2008, Windows 7, Exchange,
MSSQL...etc.

Take total costs of licensing (let's say serious discount of
$50/each)...that's $200.00.

Multiply by 2,000,000 people...I just generated $400,000,000!

Good marketing goes a long way.

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