Tux goes retail: Mepis, Xandros, Linspire, and Micro Center VIP Interviews

What would happen if you had head honchos from some of the most leading retail Linux desktop distributions all in the same room for an interview? One fascinating perspective as to what drives them to beat the odds, of course!

This is the second in a series of two articles on Tux’s move into retail. Last weeks article described some of the mechanics of how free open source software is getting into retail. Today, Mad Penguin™ interviews Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony; Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos; Mepis Linux founder Warren Woodford; and Kevin Jones, Micro Center Vice President of Merchandising, to get their take Tux’s jump into big box retail.

Some common themes emerge from these interviews. First, relationships with companies and people working in the distribution chain don’t emerge over night. Just as in contributing code, you have to build trust first before you get to dance. Second, you have to convince the distribution chain that there is a financial incentive to selling your distro. Third, you need a chain rep to package the code and get it to the stores in the right volume at the right time. These interviews also make clear that these business leaders do not always agree on what it will take to make open source a success in retail. Some will emphasize using the retail machine, others will emphasize starting with grassroots marketing. Source: Mad Penguin

[tags]linspire,xandros,mepis,micro center vip,retail machine[/tags]