[Zope] A Tale from IBM land...

[Mike Krohn]

The trouble with being a marketer is that you get advice
from everyone. We all think we know how to do it. But (with
humility) here's a thought that might be relevant:

I've just done a stint at a big corporate. They use
Vignette, BroadVision, ASP, ColdFusion. Not Zope. Corporate
strategy dictates that they take what they perceive as the
least risky choice for their main e-commerce
infrastructure - can't risk the public face of the company.

Apache is in there. But it is going to be a long time before
Zope is seen as less risky than, say, Vignette. Technically
better, more productive, sure. But a perception of less
risky? No. Uncomfortable but true, I believe. So the major
infrastucture for e-commerce in big corporates is not a
market that Zope can make a big impression on directly. Need
to slide round the side.

This company had a host of smaller intranet projects often
on shoestrings and often staffed by interns. These projects
have different criteria. Risk is less important on many
intranet sites. Cost is important. Nimbleness is important.
Zope could win here. We would have to be careful with the
messages so as not to get cornered in a niche but it could
lead to the big platform implementations, too.

I managed several of this sort of projects. I'd never heard
of Zope or I would have used it. I expect there are lots
like me still choosing Vignette (as I did) even though it
was expensive and when Zope would have been a more
appropriate choice. So how about concentrating some
marketing effort on small-medium intranet projects in big
companies? And the people who commission and manage them.

Finally, on buzzwords, I'd say go easy on Python. It scares
people. Say Perl, say XML, say any other ML. Who cares what
BroadVision is written in? Why should we care with Zope?
(someone is going to hate that).
....Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris McDonough" <chrism@digicool.com>
To: "Peter Bengtsson" <mail@peterbe.com>
Cc: "Chris Withers" <chrisw@nipltd.com>;
<liao@sandiego.edu>; <zope@zope.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 2:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Zope] A Tale from IBM land...


: Peter Bengtsson wrote:
: >
: > > hoped.  But it's still a fact that people don't like
to buy something
: > > they haven't seen on TV...
: >
: > Well said!
: > ...OSS failure in a nutshell.
: >
: > When is Digital Creations going to apply the marketing
campaign it needs to
: > gain the "same" status?
:
: The marketing folks are gearing up, but it's a tough
thing... there's
: plenty of ways to waste money doing marketing, and they
need to spend
: wisely.  They're smart folks, however, so I have faith
that they'll
: choose the right venues.
:
: > I'd love to see Digital Creations at Mobile Business
: > Solution exhibitions just like Vignette for example.
:
: Well, we did exhibit at Internet World(?), and recieved a
Best of Show
: award if that means anything.
:
: There's a list of shows that DC is planning to go to here:
: http://www.digicool.com/news/tradeshows/view
:
: > Or just say "we're into e-this and e-that and we store
everything in
: > XML-this and XML-that".
: >
: > The more "e" words and "XML" words the better the
product! (sure)
:
: Well, I think that's part of it (unforunately), but the
bigger part of
: it is having an audience consisting of people with money
to spend,
: regardless of the buzzwords du jour.
:
: - C
:
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