> the point being that from a marketing perspective > we really have to get developers on board to write the > apps which make the OS useful. I mentioned it before, and the best example in this case actually comes from Microsoft, but almost all email clients fail to recognize that email is about contact management, but although they all have fancy sorting options, none of them push the info management into the foreground and provide reminders of common tasks, ie birthdays, non-coommunication over a period, non-replies over a time span, etc. IOW, they are mail sorters and attachment extractors, but no communication tools. Interestingly, Outlook (for all its warts), does the best job there, because it includes a journal, a calendar, synch. tools and much more. Now if we did something like this, but without the vulnerabilities and perhaps on a more user-friendly and slightly less complex scale in BeOS, and maybe if we included the info from People, then also created a uniform fax in/outbox and a uniform IM in/outbox, then one could put it all together into one easy-to-use yet powerful "communications center". The big issue - for all those who haven't noticed yet ;-) - is the sharing of information, be it files, URLs, appointments, anything that you deem valuable for something else, but other than performing the technical task (sending a mail with an attachment), none of the emailers or even Instant Messengers are good "sharing" applications. I hope to change that with Sonork for BeOS, but this is just to give you an indication where to look for improvements that rank high on the useability list. I am sure much of the groundwork for that needs to be done at OS level (ie mail/IM/fax in/outbox, encryption, synchronization,...) which is why I'm writing this here, also in answer of this... > where do we, the OpenBeOS guys specifically, need to be > putting our marketer hats on? So in essence, we, app and OS developers and marketers, have to put out creative and innovative hats on, because we mustn't delude ourselves by thinking that people will switch to the BeOS just because the OS is so cool. People use computers to get stuff done faster, and that's exactly where we have to be better. If we show people that BeOS isn't only faster and more stable and has a nicer user community, but also that the applications are innovative and highly useful, then people will eventually take note - also because the marketers have the USPs they can promote. Marketing a computing platform whose apps are just like Windows/Linux/Mac, probably slightly worse, is next to impossible, but this is why it's so important to get marketing input into the concept and development of applications. Take this as some sort of warning, because I hate to see you all do your work in vain. I want to enjoy marketing the BeOS, but for that you guys need to be creative and open to innovation at all levels. Helmar