Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Mac OS X and Frontier

Author:Ralph Hempel
Posted:8/31/2000; 3:34:08 PM
Topic:Mac OS X and Frontier
Msg #:20624 (In response to 20612)
Prev/Next:20623 / 20625

Now Dave (Jacobs) is a great salesman. How can we show him what we can do in the context of their premier product, Dreamweaver, the role Manila and Mac OS X can play in making the Mac a great asset not just in education but in business too?

In my opinion, the problem with selling Frontier/Manila/RadioUserland is that it isn't one killer app. It's more like a moldable product that you can use to get jobs done. As soon as you mention scripting or programming to consumers, they'll run screaming from the room. They want it to work right out of the box.

Instead, repackage the product as needed for the apps...like this:

I use Frontier for my website - sell it to me as a content management tool and preconfigure it to do what I'm most likely to want to do.

I'm a music junkie - sell me RadioUserland as a playlist editor.

I'm an author - sell me Frontier as a tool for writing big documents, so I can take my copy of Word out back and shoot it.

I'm a school district - sell me Manila so each teacher can post assignments, class notes, and updates where kids and parents can see them together.

Heck, since Frontier is about a 2.5Mb download, you could deliver about 250 pre-canned apps on a single CD! Forget the CD, just distribute it over the Web. You could even make it so that if someone made a niche application out of Frontier, they could configure it, sell it, and then send the users to Userland to buy the licence key, and take a cut from the proceeds. Support comes from the guy that configured it, not Userland.

There are LOTS of creative ways to sell Frontier as an application, but forget pitching it as a scriptable, extensible do-everything outliner. Consumers just won't get it - nevermind executives at big companies.

Cheers, Ralph Hempel - P.Eng

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