[Squeakfoundation]Order of business ...

[Cees de Groot]

 <danielv@netvision.net.il> said:
>Sounds like we have some expertise here. So what do we have to offer
>those general communities? Can we "sell" them Swiki's, or anything else
>we already have? is anyone in their lists, and knows what they need?
>
Let's take it step by step - first some general brand marketing, because
no-one is going to be interested in Wiki implementation number 42 when they
have never heard of Squeak. Probably play on the strong points: 
- Heritage. In the area of OO and GUI's, Squeak is top breed;
- Portability. The only platform that runs bit-identical on X (how many?)
  machines, including multimedia;
- Scope. From schoolkids to experienced software developers. 
Just tout it as the #1 21st century computing platform - given enough
follow-up information, people will pick what they need themselves. 

There really aren't much singular strong points in Squeak - IMHO, it's the
quantity that counts more than the quality. DVS will be less (for the time
being) than StORE; Swiki is not the best Wiki; there's better FM synthesis
stuff around, nicer MP3 players, and certainly better webbrowsers. But the
fact that you get it all without having to think (much) about portability is
what counts. 

I do think that as a 'killer app', we should try to see whether we can come up
with power-point like functionality. If I'm correct, the largest problem at
the moment is that the BookMorph doesn't work good enough (b/c, AFAIK - I'm a
moronic nitwit kind of guy in the Morphic area - it doesn't have the ability
to pop into full-screen mode you are used to from presentation software). When
we have something that can do simple presentations well, and we can show (with
demos) that you're basically unlimited in what you can do (covering the scope
from PowerPoint to Director, platform-independent), we might have something we
could sell specifically to the 'general' community. 

-- 
Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg@cdegroot.com>
GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD  1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
Cogito ergo evigilo