An interesting note from the Wall Street Journal’s Walter Mossberg on who’s serving whom in the computer market.
In the December 29, 2005 WSJ Mossberg observed that computer users tend to have begun the work day one of two ways:
- You fired it up and went to work using "the full range of changing resources and tools offered by software and Internet companies."
- You logged in, "probably multiple times, using passwords you could barely remember because you are forced to change them so often. Then, you entered a world of computing where much of the power and variety of the technology was closed off to you in the name of security or conformity by an information-technology department in your large corporation or organization." Chances are, Mossberg suggested, some websites and tools like instant messaging were unavailable regardless of their business purposes.
The determining factor on which experience each of us had was not the range of utility available but the criteria of the persons responsible for acquiring the computers: End users or IT departments.
Most computers are designed for and sold to the IT market.
Mossberg: "This is true even though, by some estimates, twice as many computers are in the hands of individuals and very small organizations than are in the control of corporate IT departments."
Mossberg claims the industry is built on a false model that imagines "consumers" playing computer games and downloading music files while "enterprise" customers do the real work that drives the economy.
According to Mossberg, the more accurate taxonomy simply divides the world between computers purchased and controlled by IT departments and those purchased and controlled by end users. Nearly every major computer maker caters to the latter despite the fact that the non-IT user base is larger in the aggregate. The same thing, he says, is true of cellphone carriers.
Perhaps it’s just easier to design and sell in a market that buys in large quantities and speaks geek than a market that buys one unit at a time and tends to be made up of non-technical types. Perhaps it’s just a rut.
"In my view," Mossberg concludes, "the world would be better off if the biggest computer companies started catering more to the non-IT part of the market, where most computers live."
- Is your business in a similar mode? Is your definition of "our customer" outmoded?
- Is there a bigger market available to you beyond the safe confines of your business model? How would you know?
At the risk of prying this biblical passage from it’s context, consider this from Isaiah 43:5 - 19 [New International Version]:
This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
- What new thing might you enjoy if you only let go of an old thing?
- Whose business model is vulnerable if you design and sell to a different market than the one you’re known for?
- Who is capable of disrupting your business plan by designing and selling differently?
- Who can help you see new things you’ve not yet perceived?
