Re:In Technology, Small Fish Almost Always Eat Big Fish
by TheOtherHobbes on Friday July 10, 2015 @02:15PM
(#9865707)
In other news PC sales fell off a cliff in the last quarter.
I think most PC vendors totally get that smartphones are direct competition. What they don't get is what to do about it - which is understandable, because that problem probably doesn't have a solution. ("Better PCs" or "PCs that are more like tablets" are clearly not the answer. Apple solves the problem with status, branding, a complete product ecosystem, and frostings of technological sugar. The generic PC industry doesn't have those options.)
But this underlines the point - you can't compete by producing another version of current technology. You can only do it by simplifying, packaging, commodifying, and finding new markets.
This doesn't always work if the markets aren't really there (see also: Apple Watch). The challenge is to find a niche that has real customer demand, not produce a clever project in search of a market - which is probably the main startup failure mode.
I think most PC vendors totally get that smartphones are direct competition. What they don't get is what to do about it - which is understandable, because that problem probably doesn't have a solution. ("Better PCs" or "PCs that are more like tablets" are clearly not the answer. Apple solves the problem with status, branding, a complete product ecosystem, and frostings of technological sugar. The generic PC industry doesn't have those options.)
But this underlines the point - you can't compete by producing another version of current technology. You can only do it by simplifying, packaging, commodifying, and finding new markets.
This doesn't always work if the markets aren't really there (see also: Apple Watch). The challenge is to find a niche that has real customer demand, not produce a clever project in search of a market - which is probably the main startup failure mode.