Views from Around the World

Last week I had the good fortune to visit customers in the Detroit area with Phil Richards and Lynus Parker from Fred Arrington’s team.  Meeting customers across the Americas shows the unique challenges different folks face.  As you likely know, the American auto sector is struggling and good people are doing their best to move the ball forward.

It was really clear after an excellent week that we can all choose to think about how we help businesses in turmoil today and how that will pay us back in the future.  When the economy is booming, convincing a large customer to try out a “free” office suite or a Linux desktop might be a bit of a challenge.  What I heard from customers and prospects last week is that in a down economy, this is the time to help take expense out of the business.

I have never heard such frustration with Microsoft and their license and maintenance practices as I have been hearing since the start of our fiscal year.  I understand that Microsoft has a business to run, just like we do.  Nonetheless, Office upgrades are off the table at many customers and I’d suggest that they are much more open to going to OpenOffice than I’ve ever seen.  Our edition for Windows is a great start for people because when we get down to brass tacks, the vast majority of Office users aren’t using the high end functionality at all.  Moreover the perception that OOO cannot do things like pivot tables is just plain wrong.  I look at the stuff being delivered by Tom Palomaki and his team in Sales Ops.  These people are rocket scientists when it comes to spreadsheets and they do it all with OOO.  Our customers and prospects could very likely hit 95% of their end users with OOO 3.X without negatively impacting effectiveness, and actually deliver improvement in service and function.  The app can be packaged using ZCM or even delivered as a virtual application using ZENworks Application Virtualization that you’ll recall we just updated.

Taking the next step, I don’t hear from people that they are rushing to Vista.  Windows 7 isn’t here yet and there are a lot of machines still on unsupported Windows.  I don’t hear about massive evergreen hardware refreshes either.  Every customer or prospect who found that portion of their user community who would be well served by SLED would also likely be able to get another year out of the existing hardware.  I heard customer company representatives say that they used to work on a three year rotation and now they are looking to get seven years out of their hardware.  There is absolutely a place for Linux on the desk in these customers and prospects.  As one Architecture Director said, “we’re not in a position where this is optional.  Linux must be our desktop, it’s how we go forward, and it won’t be open for discussion.”

My request of you is simple.  If you haven’t brought up SLED and OpenOffice with your customers, greenfield accounts and renewals since last fall, do so again.  You might be surprised.  And for those who are struggling now, maybe we can help them survive and then thrive.  People buy from people, and just as you remember those who provided great service to you, so will they when things turn around.

Until next time, peace.

Ross

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.