Date: Fri, 03 Jul 1998 22:51:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Nicole Harrington <freelist@webweaver.net> To: "Jan B. Koum" <jkb@best.com> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> Subject: Re: Advocates, speak up! (re: just something to say) Message-ID: <XFMail.980703225149.freelist@webweaver.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980703213823.8899B-100000@shell6.ba.best.com>
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On 04-Jul-98 Jan B. Koum wisely wrote: > > Here is my list of companies which would appeal to suit wearing > droids. Lets add to it and make it biger: > > www.yahoo.com > www.hotmail.com > www.ebay.com > www.best.com > www.whistle.com > www.pluris.com > www.linkexchange.com > > If you have a 4 cpu PPro SMP machine with 1Gig of RAM sittig on > the T3 serving a lot of traffic it won't make it on the list. We need > companies which actually make money.. and A LOT of money (Yahoo, best, > etc) from using FreeBSD. > Well you can add www.mediacity.com and www.ispchannel.com. I have just spend about 500,000 dollars building a system to carry over 100K users nationwide 90% based on FreeBSD. We just got 10 Million in funding and are soon to get more. Much more. We are publicly traded as "sof" and our stock has gone from ~4.00 a share to ~12:00 a share. The money and our venture is all public information. I just wish I could make the FreeBSD part more public It is not exaclty the kind of information they put on public releases. :< Perhaps with this increase of knowlege about who used FreeBSD companies won't be afraid of letting people know they use it. Nicole > > On Fri, 3 Jul 1998, Wes Peters wrote: > >>My hidden microphone recorded Jan B. Koum (jkb@best.com) saying: >> >>% >>% Hi all, >>% >>% I just wanted to say something here since this list has been quite >>% lately. Basically, many of you already know this, but anyway. >>% Whenever I have to convince someone who is not very technical why >>% they should use FreeBSD, I usually try not to bore them with how great our >>% vm is, or why is it better to have centralized and hence better controlled >>% code. I usually tell people something like this: >>% "Look, here is an example: yahoo. Their stock is skyrocketing and >>% they are doing excellent. Yes, they are using FreeBSD. They have in house >>% support for it, but still, they must know what they are doing - their >>% whole operation is FreeBSD based. Another example is Hotmail. Even though >>% they got bought by MS, they are still using FreeBSD on the front end to >>% run their servers since NT couldn't' handle the load. Want another >>% example? Take a look at Best Internet -- they jut filed for IPO". >>% Something in the lines of the above paragraph usually gets a >>% message through to the suits that to have successful company you don't >>% need NT or Solaris. You just need to have people with a clue. But that is >>% another subject. >> >>Frank Pawlak called me yesterday to chat about what is happening, and >>what isn't, in FreeBSD-Advocacy. As we talked, we decided success >>stories like the above are *exactly* what we need to convince business >>people (i.e. "suits") that FreeBSD is a suitable choice for *their* >>business. >> >>Managers may not be the smartest people in the world -- if they were, >>they'd be kernel VM developers -- but they are extremely risk averse. >>In other words, they don't want to stick their necks out. In order >>for them to say yes to using FreeBSD, they want to see two things: >> >>1) A business case. How will using FreeBSD improve their bottom line, >> versus say NT or Linux on a server, or Linux, VxWorks, QNX, LynxOS, >> etc. in an embedded system? >> >>2) A success story (or 20). They want to make sure they're NOT breaking >> new ground; that is "risk taking," which is severely punished in most >> (US, at least) companies. >> >>Frank and I agreed that an outline for a prototypical success story would >>be helpful to this group, and an EXAMPLE success story would be even more >>helpful. Since I volunteered to write one a while ago, he *encouraged* >>me to get on with it. ;^) >> >>I'll be doing that this weekend, as long as my life doesn't intrude. >>(See below). >> >>Please, folks, if you have any contributions to make in this discussion, >>hop in now. Take the initiative like Frank did - find another Advocate, >>or someone who should be an Advocate, call him or her on the phone, send >>direct email. >> >>% Anyway, happy 4th to those who celebrate (I don't, I just enjoy >>% the day off) and lets make some noise on this list. >> >>*I* spent the afternoon riding a steam train with my family, including my >>two-year-old daughter, who walked up and down the train several times going >>"choo >>choo choo." She charmed the other passengers nearly as much as she charmed >>me; they would make whistle sounds "woo woo" as we passed. We also got to >>meet Karl Malone, of the Utah Jazz NBA (pro basketball) team; he had rented >>the caboose for a family outing. >> >>We learned a bit of American history, too: the rail route for this train, >>through Provo Canyon in north-central Utah, was first surveyed by the US Army >>Corps of Engineers as a possible route for the transcontinental railroad in >>1839, by a young engineering officer named Jefferson Davis. Mr. Davis was >>later the first (and only) president of the Confederate States of America, >>near whose capitol I was born, as was my father and older brother. >> >>Happy Birthday, America! >> >>-- >> "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" >> >>Wes Peters Softweyr LLC >>http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com >> >> >> >> > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message nicole@webweaver.net - http://www.webweaver.net/ webmistress@dangermouse.org - http://www.dangermouse.org/ ------------------------------------------------- -- Powered by Coka Cola and FreeBSD -- -- Stong enough for a man - But made for a Woman -- -- Microsoft: What bug would you like today? -- -- I tried an internal modem once, but it hurt when I walked -- --------------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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