The Mozilla project seem to be turning out nice products. As a matter of fact, these products are useful specially today if you are going to use them for editing simple documents or you have a need for bare-bone application. They are on par with the Sun's Open Office tools, I would call them rev 2.0 equivalent to a product from a commercial software supplier (i.e. Adobe, Intuit, Symantec, etc). Last post I wrote a footnote about why these products are used for research and analysis. I keep on coming to the conclusion, mostly by gut feeling, that many commercial products have holes in their marketing. Not just missing part of the main message, or confusion in the positioning, targeting and audience focus. But, truly missing pieces of a product description which to most users would be considered a basic information. The simple open source applications do an excellent job in describing the basic product. They also simplify the message, mostly assuming that users will not have a problem with the decision leading to try the product. For some commercial products this is a crucial lesson to learn. Simply having the user download, install and take a look at the product would be an excellent start and a useful expanding the user base.
SeaMonkey project main page, simple and complete for a open source product The SeaMonkey project page is simple in design and content. It has only 9 entries on the right hand side menu (News, Downloads, Community, Documentation, etc.) The main section starts out with a download box. This is understandable since SeaMonkey is a very basic suite of Internet tools (Browser, e-Mail, chat and HTML editor). I presume the assumption is of a very familiar users who mostly come for the download function. The box has links for "features" and "release notes". Below the download section are sections for "project news" and "SeaMonkey suite". Unlike the Nvu page there are no specific features on the first page. Essentially the introduction to new users is on a higher level and less specific. This enable the design to be more simple and if a user is interested in more detail, there are links to a more verbose page. I think that in terms of a familiar user and a new user the content is sufficient. It seems to me that commercial applications tent to err on "more is better" and therefore highlight more "salesy" (some would call it "sexy") items as was seen in the Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft products pages. The categories they picked as main sub sections (on the menu) are self explanatory. The sub-sections also cover a broad range of user topics with only one section "Development" not related to end users. This is a good indication to a user that he is in the "right place". Since technology and products on the web cover a very broad range of abilities, some products while covering a broad range of user abilities tent to push for the "high-end" user. This is not a place to look at which user is targeted, but the analysis of what user is targeted and the intended message is a good place for a marketer to use in evaluating similar and competing products.
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* I do not claim to be a 'technology historian' by any means. The descriptions here are strictly a shortcut to explaining how these products evolve and get to a certain point in time. I would appreciate any explanations on some of the events, specially details on the product features and overall operation. Technology issues and organizations (i.e. corporate activities in how the products were run) are less important at this point in time. BUT, more information on a product, better off the marketer's knowledge and faster she/he can take appropriate actions. The study of recent product history and the technology market is sadly neglected in the race to get products out and win market share. This is another topic worth a little research and a few articles on the blog.
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