UPDATED Draft Marketing Plan 2020-2025

After 10 years, LibreOffice is a different software in a different
market environment. We are quickly approaching the milestone release of
LibreOffice 7.0, which, for the first time in over 10 years, will offer
a new updated open standard format for office document: ODF 1.3.

LibreOffice is now available on the desktop, online and on mobile, in
different flavours, and with different names according to the ecosystem
company releasing the product.

It is therefore the time to update our marketing strategy, based on the
current situation and the market outlook for the next 5 years.

The approach has been already discussed in private by a small group of
people and has reached a first level of consensus. It will be discussed
in public during next BoD call, on Friday, June 19, at 1PM CEST.

The draft presentation is available online on TDF Nextcloud:
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/jzryGw7XDkJadmo

Please focus on the overall strategy and not on specific details, as
details can be tweaked to reach a wider consensus.

Many thanks for putting this together and sharing it, Italo. It's a
exciting document and opportunity for 7.0 and there are many new and
interesting ideas contained.

## Summary of comments:

- For the purposes of this plan we should compare LO to gratis office
suites, not only FOSS ones, in order to be realistic and competitive
- The plan lacks details of market segmentation -- information about the
targeted audiences and why they were chosen
- In some parts the plan's scope is too wide in my view -- marketing
can't solve all TDF's problems (eg community and vendor agreement issues)
- The brand is about to be updated and redefined: I think we can afford
to be more bold and expressive in the new names before they are finalised

## Comments slide by slide (actual, not printed, slide numbers used):

Slide 18, 26: Only viable FOSS alternative to Microsoft Office - should
compare ourselves to free suites not just foss. Business models have
changed allowing free (beer) forever proprietary suites to be
comprehensive competitors.

Slide 19 and 20 lack title and clarity of purpose

Is slide 22 about marketing? Sounds like community management not
specific to marketing

Slide 28: the best free office suite ever - free as in beer? This claim
is too broad to be meaningful. For effective marketing we need to be
specific about audiences - LO is not the best gratis office suite for
some market segments. If we start off by assuming we are already or
still the best for everyone then all marketing that follows will be
misguided.

Slide 29: why are these the most important segments? By userbase /
community size / historical visibility / desirability?

Slide 32: LibreOffice Engine: great initiative to communicate the family
of products. I'm not a fan of "Engine" as it has unnecessarily technical
connotations, however achieving consensus is hard to I'll refrain from
further comment here.

Slide 33: Separation like this should make marketing considerably easier.
"LibreOffice Personal" could be more distinctive, inspiring, and
reflective of LO's unique vision and history, however again I'll postpone
further comment to prioritise consensus.

Slide 36: .biz domains lack credibility in my view, even compared to
some newer unknown domains. Personally I associate them with
unscrupulous salesmen, probably because of how "biz" is often used as an
abbreviation in american English. Consider alternatives like .pro,
.enterprises, .services. I strongly support investment in building a
community on LinkedIn -- this is an ideal place for showcasing the
strength of the larger LO business community, both to encourage business
users, and to attract technical talent to experiment and apply for jobs.

Slide 40: no comments on the LOOL situation except to agree that a
win-win seems highly achievable with some creative thinking, and also
critical.

Slide 44 and 47: "XXX announces XXX Mobile, based on the
LibreOfficeEngine technology" -- how would this be enforced? For various
commercial reasons it will be attractive to deviate from this for some
companies in future (eg future entrants to the LO ecosystem). Is it
desirable to legally enforce it? If it's not enforcable, is it worth
adopting at all?

Slide 52: "We could develop a specific program, backed by a specific
certification, for these NGOs, to educate them about open source
software" -- An agreement between LO vendors to offer consistently
discounted prices to NGOs would simplify the marketing of these efforts
and likely increase impact. However the strategic benefit of such a
programme to the companies would need to be assessed, ideally by TDF, in
my view.

Slide 58: "which should bethe final marketing plan for the next five
years" -- it's a huge win that we will have a plan like this going
forward, and I recommend that it is updated at intervals within the 5
year time frame to keep it in line with market developments.

Hope that helps,

Sam.

I agree with Sam here -- ".biz" still has a strong connotation of scam
websites and cheap rip-offs to me. Maybe things have changed in recent
years, but "libreoffice.biz" still makes me feel awkward.

.enterprise, .business or .inbusiness would be better IMO.

I consider this a detail of the wider concept to have a website
associated to LibreOffice Enterprise. I have not done any research into
each domain viability, and I have used BIZ as this was the easiest one
to find on registrar's websites, so every improvement is welcome.

Hello Italo,

In France we really need this stuff, making a difference between the current libreoffice for the state and professional support (currently Linagora and previouslu CapGemini) and development made by professional like CIB or Collabora. You have my support on this!

Thanks Italo !

Hi all

The draft presentation is available online on TDF Nextcloud:
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/jzryGw7XDkJadmo

Please focus on the overall strategy and not on specific details, as
details can be tweaked to reach a wider consensus.

Slide 12
"• Thanks to the combined efforts of the entire project, with contributions from community and ecosystem, we have released LibreOffice for desktop, online and mobile
• We are proud of being recognized by the LibreOffice brand name, which represents the common asset for community and ecosystem members (with a large number of people being active in both areas)"

So it is understood that "community" and "ecosystem" are basically two different things.
(c.f. also slide 22: "Relationships between ecosystem and community are not ideal...")

Slide 13:
And there is also a "LibreOffice Project" - a third different thing (an "umbrella brand name")? An this "umbrella brand name" "...will communicate with one voice,to make it easier for users ..." - also a communicating brand name? Like a bigmouth brass ? Honestly: Who will be the entity behind the brand name which is the sender of the message?

Slide 14
This shall be explained by a graphic. This graphic tells us that the entity called "LibreOffice Community" consists of the intersecting set of "LibreOffice volunteers" at the one hand and "LibreOffice Ecosystem" at the other hand;. All three together combine to the "LibreOffice Project".
Some remarks on this:
1. So a volunteer not engaged in the ecosystem cannot be a part of the community, but of the project. On the other hand are some parts of the ecosystem are not part of the community, but of the Project. (...and then talking there with one voice?)
2. Was looking for TDF - didn't find.

(Personal remark: IMHO this graphic representation should be deleted immediately and thoroughly been rethought of - and surely not at all solely by marketing people, because this is far beyond their scope.)

Slide 15 and 16
These two are a slap into the face of many of the community members. It is made clear that only contributions to the source code are counted - but outlined as "Community the last two years - community by numbers". Perhaps the authors should rehearse the regulations of membership of the TDF and what is considered as contribution there - and correct their metrics then accordingly in a hurry. For instance, I never contributed one line of code into the repository - so I'm not contributing? In that metrics surely not. With Italo or Mike S., I'm not that sure .

Slide 19 and 20
Sense, use and message seems hidden into a deep dark hole for me - especially for a communications concept of LibreOffice (I got my problems with the label "marketing Plan", because marketing in a nutshell cares of customer requirements [1]- what this concept does not at all so far)

And then, coming to the core:
Slide 25

"Finding the right balance between the free product and the enterprise supported product"

This seems to be the utmost concern of the paper. But:
It can not be neither the task of the community nor the TDF to do so. Why? At first hand just because they are not able to because they don't have any influence on the enterprise supported product. So every attempt will be fairly unfair because only the free product will have to adjust then.
As a reaction on this unbalanced situation we will see attempts to gain some influence on the enterprise supported product (i.e. via trademark license) which will increase the discord. No one is in need of this. This balance has to be found another way - and the TDf has some means for that, i.e. the Advisory Board, which in my perception is the place where the ecosystem meets (maybe I'm wrong?).

Slide 28
Right start - but where it leads us? No requirements analyzed. Could also be "blue users", "green users" etc.

Slide 29
A "Version" is not a requirement. Central step which leads from Group specificrequirement to a specific offer is missing. An example:
"Educational Orgs" are assigned to "Community Version" when they're first/second cycle, but universities are assigned to "Ecosystem Version". Why? Which requirements a differentiating them? Not-to-pay-for-Version only for first/second cycle, because Universities do have more money to spend and less buerocracy?

Slide 30
"Move from “TDF announces” to “the LibreOffice project announces”, with quotes from community members or ecosystem members, as appropriate"

This is overdue, indeed. And will strengthen the brand "LibreOffice" as well. But c.f. remark to Slide 13.

Slide 32
"LibreOffice Personal..." - There have been expressed a lot of (imho) appropriate arguments against this kind of labeling. No need to repeat. We should not tell things to our customers which are not true (like "LibreOffice Enterprise:... suggested for production environments and strategic documents" which strongly implies there is a quality or even functionality gap between the two versions - if not even unfixed bugs in the community version).

Slide 35 to 38
Good ideas - bot not TDFs business at all (cf. for the statutes: "promotion and development of office software available for use by anyone free of charge" is exactly /not/ what the ecosystem companies do, so TDF cannot support them to that effect)!
Acting accordingly to this concept by TDF undoubtly will lead it to be a part of the marketing branch of the ecosystem companies and violating it's statutes.
Maybe the ecosystem companies make up a joint agency for realizing these good ideas?

Stopped here by now, will be continued maybe later on the rest of the topics.

Hi Uwe,

I'm not a marketing strategist and the plan is a draft of an idea that
you and many others are shaping to get the best results for all.

Having said that I'll try to engage and see if we can get some clearer
ideas about it.

Hi all

The draft presentation is available online on TDF Nextcloud:
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/jzryGw7XDkJadmo

Please focus on the overall strategy and not on specific details, as
details can be tweaked to reach a wider consensus.

Slide 12
"• Thanks to the combined efforts of the entire project, with contributions from community and ecosystem, we have released LibreOffice for desktop, online and mobile
• We are proud of being recognized by the LibreOffice brand name, which represents the common asset for community and ecosystem members (with a large number of people being active in both areas)"

So it is understood that "community" and "ecosystem" are basically two different things.
(c.f. also slide 22: "Relationships between ecosystem and community are not ideal...")

They are 2 complementary and often overlapping groups of people and
entities.

We are all part of the same community but while the Community is mostly
referring to the people that are part of it the ecosystem refers to the
entities/companies that are actively contributing to the Project,
mostly, in terms of code and skills.

Slide 13:
And there is also a "LibreOffice Project" - a third different thing (an "umbrella brand name")? An this "umbrella brand name" "...will communicate with one voice,to make it easier for users ..." - also a communicating brand name? Like a bigmouth brass ? Honestly: Who will be the entity behind the brand name which is the sender of the message?

As it's sometimes difficult to explain the overlap between the Community
and the ecosystem it may be easier to call it LibreOffice Project of
which the Community and the ecosystem are a subset. So we are all
contributing to the LibreOffice Project as individuals, as employees in
the ecosystem and often both.

Slide 14
This shall be explained by a graphic. This graphic tells us that the entity called "LibreOffice Community" consists of the intersecting set of "LibreOffice volunteers" at the one hand and "LibreOffice Ecosystem" at the other hand;. All three together combine to the "LibreOffice Project".
Some remarks on this:
1. So a volunteer not engaged in the ecosystem cannot be a part of the community, but of the project. On the other hand are some parts of the ecosystem are not part of the community, but of the Project. (...and then talking there with one voice?)
2. Was looking for TDF - didn't find.

(Personal remark: IMHO this graphic representation should be deleted immediately and thoroughly been rethought of - and surely not at all solely by marketing people, because this is far beyond their scope.)

It's probably not the clearest graphic representation but thanks to your
remarks it will be deleted/improved.
There are many ways people can and do contribute to the LibreOffice
project, should a "Volunteers" subset be created or just be part of the
Community? That's a good question.

You invested a lot in LibreOffice and you feel part of the Community, do
you think that others that maybe are less engaged should be called
Volunteers, members of the Community, something else?

Slide 15 and 16
These two are a slap into the face of many of the community members. It is made clear that only contributions to the source code are counted - but outlined as "Community the last two years - community by numbers". Perhaps the authors should rehearse the regulations of membership of the TDF and what is considered as contribution there - and correct their metrics then accordingly in a hurry. For instance, I never contributed one line of code into the repository - so I'm not contributing? In that metrics surely not. With Italo or Mike S., I'm not that sure .

The title of the slides should probably state that they talk about code
contributions.

Slide 19 and 20
Sense, use and message seems hidden into a deep dark hole for me - especially for a communications concept of LibreOffice (I got my problems with the label "marketing Plan", because marketing in a nutshell cares of customer requirements [1]- what this concept does not at all so far)

True, maybe we should call it Manifesto? Something else?

And then, coming to the core:
Slide 25

"Finding the right balance between the free product and the enterprise supported product"

This seems to be the utmost concern of the paper. But:
It can not be neither the task of the community nor the TDF to do so. Why? At first hand just because they are not able to because they don't have any influence on the enterprise supported product. So every attempt will be fairly unfair because only the free product will have to adjust then.
As a reaction on this unbalanced situation we will see attempts to gain some influence on the enterprise supported product (i.e. via trademark license) which will increase the discord. No one is in need of this. This balance has to be found another way - and the TDf has some means for that, i.e. the Advisory Board, which in my perception is the place where the ecosystem meets (maybe I'm wrong?).

First thing to clarify: TDF is not going to publish any Enterprise product.

The members of the ecosystem have their own LibreOffice based offering
and services. TDF does not get involved in those.
Some are already publishing LibreOffice based products with their own
brand, it's their right and we pose no restrictions at present.
TM licences are under review and that would be part of another consultation.
We'll have another consultation also in relation to how organisations
will be considered part of the ecosystem and what they will need to
contribute back.

LibreOffice does not need to adjust to the ecosystem, the contrary is
probably true and we have to find the right balance for all.

Slide 28
Right start - but where it leads us? No requirements analyzed. Could also be "blue users", "green users" etc.

The list could go on and include users with or without dogs but we need
to identify first the major macro clusters.

Slide 29
A "Version" is not a requirement. Central step which leads from Group specificrequirement to a specific offer is missing. An example:
"Educational Orgs" are assigned to "Community Version" when they're first/second cycle, but universities are assigned to "Ecosystem Version". Why? Which requirements a differentiating them? Not-to-pay-for-Version only for first/second cycle, because Universities do have more money to spend and less buerocracy?

It's just a basic attempt to identify who may need/should implement LTS,
Enterprise support and/or should be capable to contribute back to the
project through code, donation or by using the ecosystem that in turn
contributes back.

Slide 30
"Move from “TDF announces” to “the LibreOffice project announces”, with quotes from community members or ecosystem members, as appropriate"

This is overdue, indeed. And will strengthen the brand "LibreOffice" as well. But c.f. remark to Slide 13.

As you see we are getting there :wink:

Slide 32
"LibreOffice Personal..." - There have been expressed a lot of (imho) appropriate arguments against this kind of labeling. No need to repeat. We should not tell things to our customers which are not true (like "LibreOffice Enterprise:... suggested for production environments and strategic documents" which strongly implies there is a quality or even functionality gap between the two versions - if not even unfixed bugs in the community version).

I'm more for Community Edition than for "Personal" to make it clear for
all that this is a Community effort.
Many LibreOffice users in Government or companies don't even know how
LibreOffice ended up on their PCs and may think that we are coming out
of a rehab 'community'.
The point is to get the opportunity to tell the millions of users that
don't know anything about us and that they think LibreOffice is a
product from just another company that things are different from what
they think.

We know what we do and they should know it as well so hopefully if the
company/organisation is big enough and has developers can help with code
or if they have a donation budget they can support us but if they have a
"product" mentality then they can get proper support and integration
services by the ecosystem which in turn will help us as well.

I don't like putting a description that diminishes the qualities of
LibreOffice but I think we should say something that tells them that
software in a company should be professionally supported. Something like:

"You are using the Community version of LibreOffice, for supported
business use consider LibreOffice Enterprise products and services."

What do you think about it?

Slide 35 to 38
Good ideas - bot not TDFs business at all (cf. for the statutes: "promotion and development of office software available for use by anyone free of charge" is exactly /not/ what the ecosystem companies do, so TDF cannot support them to that effect)!
Acting accordingly to this concept by TDF undoubtly will lead it to be a part of the marketing branch of the ecosystem companies and violating it's statutes.
Maybe the ecosystem companies make up a joint agency for realizing these good ideas?

I read the statutes and talked a lot with those that wrote them to
understand correctly the spirit of what they wrote and not just the text.
I totally agree with you, TDF should not promote any commercial company
out there.

This is another point that we put out there to have your feedback.

From one side we have organisations that are contributing a lot to
LibreOffice which we should support and the other side we have our duty
to run TDF following its statutes and principles.

The other issue I see is that the other companies could setup an agency
to promote their good work but then we'll have to work out a TM
agreement if they want to mention LibreOffice and keep nagging them if
we think that a comma in an article that mention LibreOffice is not good
for us.

Let's not forget that we still have to work on an entity that will
manage the apps in the app stores.
I'm personally keen on setting up non-profit/commercial (TBD)
organisation fully owned by TDF which could also act as marketing tool
for both TDF and the ecosystem. Being fully owned by TDF and maybe also
financially supported by the ecosystem it may be able to be balanced
enough and the Board can always deliberate to steer it in the right
direction if/when necessary.

Any thoughts about it?

Stopped here by now, will be continued maybe later on the rest of the topics.

I guess it's a good start for a conversation.

Ciao

Paolo

Just a quick note.

Slide 15 and 16
These two are a slap into the face of many of the community members. It is made clear that only contributions to the source code are counted - but outlined as "Community the last two years - community by numbers". Perhaps the authors should rehearse the regulations of membership of the TDF and what is considered as contribution there - and correct their metrics then accordingly in a hurry. For instance, I never contributed one line of code into the repository - so I'm not contributing? In that metrics surely not. With Italo or Mike S., I'm not that sure .

The title of the slides should probably state that they talk about code
contributions.

The two slides are extracted from the dashboard, and they are about all
contributions to the project which are parsed by the different tools, so
they are rather inclusive although they do not include all localizations
and all email threads. If you look at the dashboard, the page is called
"community". Code contributions are a subset.

Thanks Italo.

I still need to learn a lot of stuff :wink:

Paolo

All community members should look regularly at the dashboard, is a very
useful tool which provides a good overview of activities.

Indeed; you can see it here:

  https://dashboard.documentfoundation.org/

  Though I believe it is being extended to be even richer and capture
more types of community activity.

  ATB,

    Michael.

Slide 16 starts with statements about code contributions and therefor is at least misleading so far. This should then be fixed/made clear.