I’ve said it before in this forum, but I think it’s a good time to say it
again:
QNX RTP should not be a free product
The lesson learned from the dotcom crash, and from the ongoing troubles of
some of the big name Linux vendors such as Mandrake, is that giving stuff
away doesn’t work. When you give software away, you create the perception
that it is worth nothing - even if it isn’t. In sales and marketing,
perceptions count.
Now is a better time than any for QNX RTP to try to establish itself as the
best “Linuxish” desktop operating system. There is much press at the moment
about how Linux is failing on the desktop because it is too technical and
too hard to manage and configure. QNX RTP isn’t too technical for end users
and its not too hard to configure.
It should be a money making proposition, at $80 - $100 per copy, and it
should be sold in partnership with someone like Yahoo, Excite or even
Google. Shake up the market. Inspire people with new thinking - QNX/Google
OS, QNX/Yahoo OS etc. Ask for some money, give the product a future. QNX
does not destroy it’s strategy of getting it cheaply into the hands of real
time developers by doing this. Organise a program to make it $10 for
developers.
QNX, as a free product, is worth nothing. The company that owns it says so
and the end users are going to pick up on that perception. The arrival of
Opera for QNX makes it a compelling time to rethink the strategy of giving
it away for nothing. Why not change the thinking from “giving it away” to
“making it available to as many people as possible”. “making it available
to as many people as possible” means teaming up with a company that does
huge vaolumes of pages, and cutting a deal in which QNX/Google OS is seen on
every page served by that company.
It is true that there are companies who have tried going “free”, but have
had more success selling their software for money because end users
associate a requirement for payment with “perceived value”.
Build the hype. Think different. Let the orld know that there is an
operating system which is a great “Linux-like desktop OS”. If only its
owners would value it higher than nothing.
Cheers
Andrew