Marketing Message for Calligra

[Inge Wallin]

On Thursday, December 22, 2011 10:51:18 Cyrille Berger Skott wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Since your message concerns as much the marketing message as the website, I
> have taken the liberty to split my answer in two.
> 
> Here is the part concerning the marketing message.
> 
> That is really great and important to start thinking about it. However, I
> would really like us to avoid any kind of disproportionate exagerating
> message like "the leader in free mobile office applications". That might
> be true, to some extent... 

This statement is undoubtedly true. Remember that mobile is not just phones 
but also tablets which are normally (always?) included in mobile.  It's true 
that Calligra has a few installed applications but it is in fact the *only* 
free office suite which have any mobile users at all.  Hence it's the leader.

> First of all calligra does not have a mobile
> interface, being available on the N9 under the "Harmattan Office UI"
> (which is still closed source, or did I miss something ?) is more of a
> victory of the engine, not bad in itself. 

Why so specific?  The N900 UI is also mobile and is free.  And the community 
has at least one other UI (calligra active) which is aimed at mobile devices.  
Of course under all these is the engine which is indeed awesome and necessary 
but not sufficient to be the leader in free mobile applications.

> Secondly, and probably more
> important (and very sadly), Calligra is only available on the N9(xx),
> which has a market share of a maximum of 0.1%. It is nowhere to be seen on
> a widely spread smartphome platform ie Android (or iPhone or Symbian).
> Once it is available on Android, saying that we are the "the leader in free
> mobile office applications" will have a strong echo compared to being
> available on a marginal platform.

Fact: Calligra *is* the leader in free mobile office applications.  It is true 
that it will be a stronger lead when there is an Android port.  My guess is 
that this will happen sooner rather than later (hint, hint :) ).  Still it 
doesn't detract from the fact that we are already the only free office suite 
that has anything at all on any mobile device.

LibreOffice has announced starting a port to Android and they got many 
articles about that rather empty statement. I am willing to bet good money 
that Calligra will run on Android before LibreOffice.  And further, I am 
willing to bet that whey they announce something it will still have the same 
desktop UI while Calligra's will be touch based and scalable.

> In my opinion, being humble is really important, especially if you consider
> who is currently reading our marketting messages right now. We are mostly
> talking to people who are highly informed, most of them know where Calligra
> comes from, and many would labeled it as a project that makes promises but
> do not deliver.
> 
> So saying something like "Calligra is available on a wide range of
> platform, from desktop to mobile." Or a bit more catchy, "Takes Calligra
> with you everywhere you go, from your desktop to your mobile", is really
> fine. But saying we are the leader in a market where we are only available
> to less than 0.1% seems too strong.

With due respect, I think you are totally wrong here.  It never pays off in 
marketing to be humble.  Really, what do you hope to achieve (or avoid for 
that matter) by being humble? 

What Calligra needs is to take a strong position. I talked about this at an 
Akademy long ago and I still think it's immensely important. We are not 
exactly entering an empty arena here. LibreOffice is going very strong on the 
desktop and I wouldn't count out OOo yet since IBM gave a pretty convincing 
presentation at the LibreOffice conference *and* they have released a (non-
free afaik) ODF viewer for Android based on the OOo code.

This position should be "the leader in free mobile office applications" or 
something like it. Mobile is the future, LibO cannot go there due to problems 
with the code and we will be able to settle in this space and later move on 
from that position.

The only thing that we can accomplish by being humble is to be made 
irrelevant.

> Other than that, I agree with your list of strong points.

I think we do actually agree on most things. :)