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What country has the second largest PC market? From the headline,
astute readers will correctly identify Japan. This diminutive island
trails behind only the United States in PC sales, making it an
important market
for desktop Linux. Japanese was the 1st language we did a complete
translation to after completing our native English version. (Linspire
has about 50 language modules, but a complete translation
covers every aspect from the installer to multimedia training
tutorials.)
To bring Linspire to Japan, we've partnered with Livedoor - an accomplished Japanese company
and despite Microsoft's actions to block us, we launched our product
last year. Livedoor, formerly called Edge, has a track record of
successfully importing
technology products from the West. They're probably best known for
developing and marketing the popular Eudora email program in Japan.
Since then, they have gone public and greatly expanded their technology
lineup. They are not simply a distributor, they actually play a vital
role in the translation and development process. Livedoor typically
has 2 or 3 developers here in San Diego at any one time, assisting us in
adding features and fine-tuning the product to help it succeed in
Japan.
Microsoft recognizes the importance of Japan and threw up some
roadblocks, which we had to overcome. Two days before our press
conference in
Tokyo announcing the product, we got news that Microsoft had called the
landlord and threatened a lawsuit if they allowed our press event to
take
place at their premises. We had to scramble to find another location,
which actually worked out well. The new venue was larger, which
we needed to accommodate the standing-room-only crowd of reporters. It
was clear from that first meeting that Japan is hungry for choice on
the desktop. Online e-commerce is not nearly as popular in Japan as in
the US, so a lot of the Linspire sales there take place in retail
stores. It's a
constant battle to keep products on store shelves and positioned
prominently though, because we have been told Microsoft uses its weight to "encourage"
retailers
to not carry our products.
Livedoor does all the traditional work you would expect from a
distribution partner, but most importantly they help grow a new
crop of Linux young people. Traditionally, a distribution relationship
deals solely with tasks such as package design, building reseller
channels and providing local support. Livedoor does all of those
tasks, but they also discover new opportunities to deploy Linux.
In schools, they've used the low-cost of Linspire to enable more PCs
for students. The Japanese schools insisted that the students be able
to use a few Microsoft Windows-based programs, even though they didn't
want to put Microsoft Windows on all of the computers. So Livedoor,
along with some help from NeTraverse, used LinspireLive!-powered web
stations and a Win4Lin terminal server to get students access to the
necessary MS Windows applications, while managing to meet their budget.
If you'd like to experience a Japanese Linux desktop, you can download
for free our CD based product based on LinspireLive! which goes by the
name "LindowsCD Japanese" in Japan. The Japanese version will shutdown after 15 minutes, but a full version is available from Livedoor. We're making the Japanese, English and
brand new Spanish version of LinspireLive! all available as a free
download via BitTorrent. So try it today!
-- MichaelThe Michael's Minute Meter
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