[Zope] A Tale from IBM land...

[Chris McDonough]

Mike Krohn wrote:
> 
> 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.

Yup, this is exactly right.  This is what I meant with my "MS is like
McDonalds" allegory... even though you know McDonalds isn't the best
food, its the least risky choice when you're in a foreign country and
you just want to eat.  Although one of the other restaurants could have
the most fantastic food you've ever tasted, it's the perception that
it's just as likely that they'll serve worms that scares everybody.

This is something that obviously can only be solved via marketing,
because no amount of technical argument can assuage these kinds of
fears.  I know lots of folks (including everyone on this list, likely)
are working on strategies for that marketing in their own way.  ;-)

OTOH, part of the reason DC went OSS with Zope was to get a (cheap)
marketing bang that they would have otherwise needed to pay through the
nose for, and probably couldn't have afforded in any case.  It appears
that this particular strategy has worked very well.
 
> 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.

Agreed... this is a hot market for us, I think... 
 
> 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.

I'd love to see this.  If you notice, DC is lately marketing Zope as a
"content management" solution (which likely means about as much to many
people as "doppelganger elfeldorf" does).  But evidently it pushes the
right buttons which cause decision-makers to open their wallets.  Not
being one, I'm going to claim ignorance about what "content management"
really means.
 
> 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

Hmmm... it's funny.  Is Python promoted heavily in the glossies?  I
imagine it's mentioned.  Would you remove references to Python in the
glossies?  We can't remove them on the Zope.org website, although maybe
we should have a Zope.com that's a little more marketing-focused.  I
believe there are plans for this.

Thanks!  It's always nice to hear from an honest-to-god decision-maker. 
It's kind of like seeing a whale while boating... you know they're out
there, but you don't see them very often. ;-)

- C