[advocacy-discuss] The OpenSolaris "Attitude"

[Jim Grisanzio]

Fauzia Saeed wrote:
> I can talk about this a bit with reference to Solaris.
> Typically a brand has two components:
> 
> -   Functional- what it does and hopefully a superior element of 
> performance.
> -   Emotive- The attitude and the emotions related to it.  The best 
> known brands for this are Energizer, Absolut Vodka, Coke, Sungapore 
> Airline, Sony, Dior, Versace, etc.


I think the emotional and visceral is most important, and that's what 
I'm trying to find in OpenSolaris. I don't see it yet from a general 
sense, although I'm certain it lives among the highly technical guys who 
have used Solaris for many years.

The more general gut level appeal for OpenSolaris will probably emerge 
from Indiana, though, and that's very exciting. Very large numbers of 
people will be using this technology for the first time so that will 
change the community as it grows significantly and internationally. I'm 
really struck by how much of the media (and blogs) are focused on the 
US, whereas in reality the majority of our growth (in terms of raw 
numbers, anyway) will be in the emerging markets of India, China, 
Brazil, Russia, etc. We already see that Eastern Europe and Asia are 
leading in Starter Kit requests. Once Indiana is set loose in these 
ares, our growth as a community will rapidly escalate.


> The entire rationale behind having an emotive appeal is that  it lasts 
> longer than a functional advantage because it is based on perceptions.  
> Typically engineering companies do this very badly.  

What about Apple? Apple is a great engineering company.

> The reason may be 
> that they are so focused on the functional side. I remember the effort 
> it took my team to buy into the idea of the "cute cars" campaign with 
> Techron.  Chevrons senior management argued that that soft, friendly 
> edge was unnecessary since they had a performance advantage.
> 
> I also feel that it is a quirk of the engineering mind that it does not 
> recognize the emotive part of the value proposition.
> 
> In the SuperG (mainly ES customers) I attended Solaris had that appeal.  
> It is difficult to articulate it but I will try:
> 
> -   Technological edge, a certain greatness which goes beyond the 
> functional advantage it delivers.
> -   A "mineness", I own this great innovation.
> -   A combination of modernity with a great legacy. -   A tremendous 
> sense of " this is a friend I can rely on who will never fail me".
> 
> It is difficult to articulate this without running a focus group 
> targeted at it but Solaris did have a lot of emotional nuances attached 
> to it in our customers mind.

Interesting. We ran some focus groups way back before the pilot program, 
and reactions to opening Solaris were really mixed.

I'm sure there is a /Solaris/ culture and attitude (I can see that 
clearly), but what I'm trying to figure out is the newly emerging 
/OpenSolaris/ attitude. To me, that's not so clear and I don't see 
anyone in OpenSolaris or observers outside talking about it. That's the 
biggest indication that it simply hasn't developed yet.

> I remember the a German Beta site made the following comment, "thank you 
> for not changing the name of Solaris to Java OS" and the whole room 
> stood up and applauded.
> I remember thinking that the real brand behind the Sun Sun brand in the 
> ES space is Solaris.
> 
> This is from 2004!


Yep. The Solaris brand is strong. That's the reason we used it to name 
OpenSolaris. :)

Jim
-- 
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris