Average: 4 (1 vote)

In my 20 years in the industry it never ceases to amaze me how many times we fall into the same trap.  My favorite trap is the "if you build it, they will come" trap.  This is of course from the movie Field of Dreams, where Ray Cansella is told to plow his corn field under (his main source of income) and build a baseball stadium for players from the past.  I love to watch companies build elaborate new services and products only to find out they don't want it.  The more apt phrase is "If you build it, they may come", that is if they have a need and you price your goods or service appropriately and you market it correctly.  Ah, but this is another blog entry.

My second favorite trap are those people that believe the best technology wins.  It helps, but it is no guarantee of success.  Think Novell vs Microsoft or Microsoft vs Lotus or Netframe vs PC Servers, or the last time you lost a bid, but were sure you had the best solution.  We are witnessing it again with Apple and all other phone makers.  Is the IPhone really that much better than all other phones.  You can draw your own opinion, but in my estimation it is not.  I will be getting one shortly, but in terms of the functions I use it isn't much better than my HTC.  I just have to have it.  And there in lies the answer to the question of why this is so.  I used to think the answer was marketing, but Apple has opened my eyes to the fact that it is marketing, branding, and packaging.  Apple has pieced together an ecosystem which makes the IPhone the best device for someone like me.  I have a Mac Laptop, I use ITunes, and I love technology that works and I believe in simplifying my life.  The IPhone simplifies my life by bringing all my technology into a single echo system.  For example, I will no longer have to fire up my windows virtual machine to synchronize my phone.  I will no longer have to search websites to find ring tones applications that are relevant to my world.  I live in ITunes already.  I will no longer have to carry my IPod to listen to the various podcasts I download every week.  But I digress.  The Apple brand is excellent.  You will notice they put a hold on most server work.  I believe it is because they are too far behind in that space right now.  They are focusing their energy on being the platform of the future.  Think Windows 3.1.  When a majority of people live in your ecosystem, they are more inclined to use your server.  Think Microsoft vs Novell.  The packaging is becoming more compelling.  As I described earlier, the IPhone is a winner because it attaches to the eco system that I have adopted.  My first blog on this site was about why I will never use another Windows based PC again.  You can page back and have a look.  But suffice it to say, the Apple laptop is better in just about every way to the competitor, and it is mostly due to the Windows operating system.  Packaging complimentary products enables Apple to gain a foothold in the phone market.  Thinks Microsoft Excel (Office) vs Lotus 123.  Was excel better than 123, not in it's original release.  But was Microsoft Office better than Lotus (Whatever they called their office product), not in any release.  The combination of products eliminated the advantage of the single product.  The Apple IPhone and ITunes is such a combination.  Finally, marketing.  People may from time to time make fun of the colorful words which Steve Jobs uses to describe the Apple products, but in the end we use the same words.  My MacBook is beautiful, and the screen is stunning and brilliant.  A mentor of mine used to say, "If you want people to bleed you have to hemorrhage".  Steve understands this, and in his keynote speeches he hemorrhages.  In fact, I believe that if he can't be convincing about a product on stage, he delays the product.  If you can't win Steve over, you lose your time on stage.  That is the culture of Apple.  Excellence at Apple is defined by your ability to innovate to the point where you impress Steve so much that he has to go to the Thesaurus to come up with new words to describe your latest accomplishment.  So now that you understand what Apple is doing, Can you replicate it in your world?

This is what happens when I get too much time away from work.  Hope you enjoy the concepts.