One thing I think Sun is really getting right with its 'Campus Ambassador' program is the way they've cottoned on to the fact that students love free stuff. Giving things away is a really good way to get people aware of and interested in Sun technology, which is the whole aim of the scheme.
One really good example of this is the training offer which I've been pushing lately while I wait for the university to get back to me about participating in the more comprehensive SAI program. The offer is basically this: for every 10 Strathclyde students who complete a short online training course about Solaris, the university gets a free SunSPOT kit. It's one of these situations where everybody wins:
- The students win, because they get access to free training material and earn a Sun certificate which they can put on their CV.
- The university wins, because it gets free hardware which it can then use for research or for student projects.
- Sun wins, because it gets people to try out their new training scheme and it raises awareness of both Solaris and SunSPOTs.
The problem with this is the quality of some of the courses and the link between a Solaris course and Sun SPOTs is unclear.
Posted by Andrew John Hughes on May 01, 2008 at 08:33 AM BST #
Yeah, it's a beta training program and they're still getting it off the ground, which is why they're looking for some student participation and feedback. With regards to why they're giving out SunSPOTs for taking a Solaris training course - well, they can hardly give out copies of Solaris, can they, since it's free anyway? If you give your training and your software away for free, the only thing left to give away is hardware. And SunSPOTs are pretty cool hardware :-)
Posted by Lamsey on May 01, 2008 at 11:28 AM BST #