4 dispatches
Market phase transitions have a tendency to be incredibly disruptive to market participants. A company or market segment used to be the “alpha wolf” can suddenly find themselves an outsider in a short time. Look at how quickly Research in Motion (makers of the Blackberry) went from industry darling to laggard after Apple’s iPhone transformed the phone market.
Technology in the 1990s and early 2000s marched to the beat of an Intel-and-Microsoft-led drum. Source: IT Portal Intel would release new chips at a regular cadence: each cheaper, faster, and more energy efficient than the last. This would let Microsoft push out new, more performance-hungry software, which would, in turn, get customers to want Intel’s next, more awesome chip.
A cab driver the other day went off on me with a rant about how new smartphone users were all smug, arrogant gadget snobs for using phones that did more than just make phone calls. “Why you gotta need more than just the phone?”, he asked. While he was probably right on the money with the “smug”, “arrogant”, and “snob” part of the description of smartphone users (at least it...
Genius? Source: Softpedia Regardless of how you feel about Microsoft’s products, you have to appreciate the brilliance of their strategic “playbook”: 1. Use the fact that Microsoft’s operating system/productivity software is used by almost everyone to identify key customer/partner needs 2. Build a product which is usually only a second/third-best follower product but make sure...