Dennis....
A well-thought-out and appreciated post.
But, as with others who have offered this viewpoint, I am compelled
to ask you to provide even one example of a development tool company
following the strategy you describe below that you say is "being used
by the most successful companies today."
And I'll expand on that a bit. Not only can I not think of a single
*development tool* company following the strategy of trying to serve
two markets with a single product, I can't even come up with a single
successful software company doing that. When I think of successful
software companies in the desktop universe, I think of:
Microsoft
Adobe
Macromedia (about to be swallowed by Adobe if that hasn't been
finalized yet)
Apple (partly)
Real
Maybe Oracle (which is a dev tools vendor in large part, but not much
on the desktop)
Adobe doesn't have a low-cost entry version of Acrobat or inDesign. A
trial version, yes, but when it expires you pay through the nose to
keep using it. Same with Macromedia. Apple supports low- and high-end
users in a couple of its strategic markets, but with two separate
products, not a low-cost version of the high-priced one. Real has a
free player but if you want to start creating Real media streams
you're gonna pay a bundle.
So where are these software companies that are following this two-
market strategy successfully? To the contrary, I think the secret to
a successful company -- in any sphere -- is focus. Do what you do
well and let others do the stuff you don't do well. If RunRev had a
couple hundred people, *maybe* they could figure out how to serve
both markets with great success. Short of that, I am unconvinced.
On Nov 26, 2005, at 8:52 AM, Dennis Brown wrote:
I think that they are more likely to stay in business with the
current model --it is the model being used by the most successful
companies today. They are growing (I assume) slowly as the product
matures. At some point I expect this model is going to propel them
forward into a larger company that can offer better general support
and product bug fixes (I think bugs cost more to fix than adding
minor new features), while continuing to support the professionals
needs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Shafer, Information Product Consultant and Author
http://www.shafermedia.com
Get my book, "Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought"
From http://www.shafermediastore.com/tech_main.html
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