Three Important Things for Plasma Active 3

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Sunday, October 14, 2012 12:27:26 Inge Wallin wrote:
> However, what I'm missing is who Plasma Active (PA) in general and this
> release in particular is aimed at. Is Plasma Active aimed at the general
> public who browses the web and watches videos? Or is it aimed at tinkerers
> (hobbyists or professionals) who really need a fully customizable platform?

Yes. ;)

> My guess is that the first category would be served well by PA itself but
> would find the very limited number of downloadable applications a major
> turn- off. 

Depends on what they use their tablet for. The limited number of apps is an 
innevitable part of the journey, and we are rather purposefully designing 
something that is useful out of the box rather than something that relies on 
applications. We simply are not playing the app count game; we're delivering a 
system that provides the essential use cases for people who use their tablets 
for online and offline content (with some nice bonuses like some games).

As for application availability, that will come with the availability of 
hardware. We've filled a large gap with the Add Ons app so that we have a nice 
way to deliver additional content, including such apps, but it's obvious we 
won't see 1000s of apps be available until there is hardware.

> But for the second category there is more or less NO
> alternative. In other words PA is unique for them.

Agreed.
 
> So I suggest that you emphasize strongly the fully free nature of PA and
> that it enables the user to build customized systems using PA where they
> have total control over the result.

Who does that? Companies creating products, but that's it. As a result, we'd 
likely simply blunt nearly all interest in what we're doing with such a "we're 
not an actual usable product, we're a set of lego bricks you get to assemble" 
message.

That said, we definitely want to court companies working on these things as 
well. However, nearly every single company I've talked to so far that would 
like to do this or is even attempting to do so now needs not just the software 
solution but a hardware solution too. Without that we're a bit dead in the 
water with them.

So we're back to marketing from what our current strengths are ...

> This is also the market segment where we can build a strong community. And a
> nice side effect is that it will be people who have money and who can put
> full-time people into the development effort. Having the first mover
> advantage here means that for at least a period, PA can get ALL the paid
> development that will happen around tablet based free systems.

Yes, one there is a hardware platform they can use. This has repeatedly been 
the issue we've run into. If you know of companies that have their own 
hardware and are doing customized tablet software on it as well, please point 
them out and/or make introductions :)

That said, I think there is a distinction between PA as a software product and 
PA as a larger ecosystem driver. On its own as a software product, no matter 
how good it might be, it is of such limited interest that it really has next 
to no future. 

--
Aaron J. Seigo
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