Thanks for answering the roll call. And now, a question.

[Greg Dekoenigsberg]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007, Paul Nelson wrote:

> I challenge you to call HP, Dell, IBM or Gateway and ask them for a quote on
> a K12LTSP lab for a school. Place the call directly to their educational
> sales rep.
>
> People have a hard time using what they don't have and can't get.
>
> Honestly, give it a try. Someone try it and report back to this list what
> happens.
>
> K12LTSP motto: It works. It's free. Duh...
>
> And the hardest part of that to explain is...

So I've been talking with lots of folks both inside and outside the 
company about this.  And what I hear from the inside folks is really 
interesting.

We've got a sales team that is, in fact, responsible for selling into 
schools.  They're called the "FED/SLED" team -- FEDeral gov't, State/Local 
gov't, EDucation.

They've got a sales number to hit.  I can't go into details, but suffice 
to say... it's not terribly ambitious.  :)

And why is that?  Two reasons, it seems like:

   (a) We don't have that much to sell that *clearly* targets the space.
   (b) Even if we did, we don't have the manpower to sell it.

And the fact that (b) is a problem seems to prevent us from making serious 
headway on (a).

So now I'm starting to believe that the way forward looks something like 
this:

1. Find a way of associating the Red Hat name with worthy education 
projects.  Of which K12LTSP is clearly one, but there are others.

2. Build a channel.  Red Hat will never be able to service schools 
directly, ever -- and neither can Dell/HP/whomever, because even if 
they *did* sell systems with K12LTSP built in, they wouldn't 
realistically be able to service schools either.

But we *can* provide expertise to local partners who can.

Maybe we can provide strong mechanisms for giving channel partners the 
ability to go sell the crap out of "a proven solution" -- which is 
training for school admins, plus some low cost/high value level 2 support, 
plus some other stuff that is valuable for the partners.  And in my 
internal discussions with Redhatters, this is now looking like a sensible 
goal to shoot for: channel enablement.

But wait -- K12LTSP works, and it's free!  True enough.  But Red Hat has 
lived in this paradox for a long time:

A lot of smart people, for some reason, just don't *trust* free.

In the big commercial markets, that's fantastic for us, and allows us to 
grow a great business and subsidize further development of Linux and open 
source.

But in the education market, this weird distrust of free-ness gets in the 
way of changing the way computers work in schools.

My goal now: to come up with a business model that makes Red Hat *just* 
enough money -- and it doesn't have to be much in the larger scheme of 
things -- to push forward the one-to-one message.

I'll be at NECC.  Steve, I'll see you there.  I'm sure I'll be talking 
first hand with a lot of you as well.

--g

-- 
Greg DeKoenigsberg
Community Development Manager
Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255
"To whomsoever much hath been given...
...from him much shall be asked"