John Stanton wrote:
This also is an anecdote from some time back. As we were signing a
fairly significant software contract with a large organization their
manager told us "You guys know nothing about marketing. Your
presentation was unprofessional, no glossy brochures, no audio visuals
and we would not have bought except that you were the only ones who
convinced us you could do the job". We just smiled and watched the
ink dry while we pondered "where did we go right?".
The simple truth is that if you hype a product and sell it into an
area where it is inadequate your triumph is short lived and the scorn
and litigation enduring. On the other hand if you deliver a solution
which works as well, or preferably better, than proposed you have
generated raving fans who will buy again and endorse your product to
all and sundry. Which is the better model?
To quote a former programs manager for Bank of America "the first
solution which meets my business needs and performs the job
adequately". In this case, adequately can be defined as loosely as
"doesn't crash too often" or as stringently as "positively no errors",
depending on the business use.
Keeping the discussion academic, "hype a product..." is a business model
that apparently has been used to at least some degree by a company
called Microsoft. It tends to work because the model permits them such
an early lead that even better products have difficulty catching up.
I do most of my programming in Delphi, a Borland product which remains
in my opinion, even in its shadow of former glory state, a far more
straightforward and powerful product than Visual Studio. Borland has
always been a technical company, not a market driven one and its
flagship product is surviving only because it remains a more well
rounded Windows solution than its competition. However, it is only
surviving and is unlikely to actually thrive ever again.
So my suggested answer is, the proven model is "dominate the market
early with an adequate product". If your product is very good and even
better than proposed, all the better. But if you are "Johnny come
lately", you will likely lose unless your product is very, very good.
And, whether we like it or not, a big part of market domination is to
convince all the decision makers (management) and decision breakers
(engineers with influence) that yours is the safest choice to make.
FWIW
John Elrick
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