Return-Path: jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu
Delivery-Date: Mon Oct 20 17:25:00 2003
Received: from elvis.arl.psu.edu ([146.186.165.126]:36479 "EHLO
elvis.arl.psu.edu") by elvis.arl.psu.edu with ESMTP
id <S7008AbTJTVY7>; Mon, 20 Oct 2003 17:24:59 -0400
X-Mailer: exmh version 2.5 07/16/2001 with nmh-1.0.4
X-uri: <URL:http://www.cse.psu.edu/~groenvel/>
To: Curtis Sasaki <Curtis.Sasaki@sun.com>
cc: John D Groenveld <jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu>,
solarisonintel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: desktop
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 19 Oct 2003 19:15:36 PDT."
<4AD89E25-02A3-11D8-A79C-0003939BCBDE@sun.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 17:24:58 -0400
From: John D Groenveld <jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu>
Message-Id: <20031020212459Z7008-795+141@elvis.arl.psu.edu>
Return-Path: <jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu>
X-Envelope-To: <jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu> (uid 60001)
X-Orcpt: rfc822;jdg117@elvis.arl.psu.edu
In message <4AD89E25-02A3-11D8-A79C-0003939BCBDE@sun.com>, Curtis Sasaki writes
:
>thanks for the background John, clear and concise. I like it. Some of
>the ideas you propose make a lot of sense. I haven't had any direct
>involvement in the Solaris "councils" so maybe it would be good to
>listen in once and awhile.
Currently, Sun hosts teleconferences with invited members of the community.
I suspect you or a subordinate can obtain agendas and meeting minutes via
Alban.
>thanks for being a stockholder, I am too and I like you want to see
>value in our shares... Glad you are rational about understanding that
>it is not zero cost. Sometimes a few folks within Sun think it is....
Its unfortunate that we weren't able to communicate to the bean counters
that there was some cost for dropping the platform from StarOffice's
release train, especially painful now that Sun's chosen get Solaris x86
back on board.
[snipped]
>I'll have to find out how to get involved with this. I haven't to
>date. Alban Richard is the product manager so I get a lot of feedback
>through him.
Does Danese Cooper work in your organization?
I think she has some expertise in managing customer community groups
and while I'm confident the Solaris group will eventually find an
effective format for interfacing with the Solaris x86 customers, she
may have some lessons learned to offer Alban's team.
Additionally, there's been some thoughts bouncing around the community
about taking some components of Solaris (specifically hardware drivers)
and releasing them as part of Sun Community Source project. I know
that sunsource.net is part of her bailiwick.
Additionally, the OpenOffice and Java community teams are frequent
exhibitors at O'Reilly Open Source and ApacheCon conferences and
Sun is playing catch up at promoting the Solaris platform as a friend
and an enticing product for those communities. Perhaps there's room
for more collaboration.
I think the Desktop unit has expertise and knowledge to offer the
Solaris unit along with its Java Desktop System components.
>> For instance, one idea bounced around the Solaris x86 mailing list
>> and recently brought up again by a community representative is to
>> place evaluation copies of Solaris x86 in StarOffice media kits.
>
>Good idea, but adding any additional cost to the BOM in the retail box
>is tough. To keep the price low, we need to watch every penny, as
>support cost $ and the channel co-marketing $ cost $$. I can't lose
>money per copy or I'll be tossed out of the company pretty quick. For
>the Sun Developer bundles, we could do something like this though.
Part of Sun's engagement with customer community definitely requires
customers to appreciate that we're not all knowing, but also that Sun
explain as best it can why certain suggestions aren't feasible or
cost prohibitive.
Its interesting that you mention Developer bundles because besides
StarOffice, SunONE Studio has an existing retail channel that members of
the Solaris customer community have previously suggested Solaris could
piggy-back on.
The Developer Tools unit also has experience with customer advisory councils
which might be helpful to both you and Alban.
Besides StarOffice, I hope you can help us see more collaboration between
the Desktop, Solaris, and all of Jonathan's units in these and other areas.
Thank you,
John
groenveld@acm.org
|