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On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 12:56:27PM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote |
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> On Wed, 11 May 2011 20:40:02 -0400, Walter Dnes wrote: |
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> |
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> > > KDE devs decided to take the risk and make the jump ahead of the |
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> > > curve. |
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> > |
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> > Coca Cola went from Coke Classic to New Coke; at least they had the |
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> > guts to admit that it was a bad idea, and reverse it. |
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> > |
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> > IBM walked away from their market leading AT. Rather than put a 386 |
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> > cpu on the motherboard, they went with the PS/2 design, which bombed. |
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> > |
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> > Micropro *OWNED* word-processing with a DOS-port of their cpm-based |
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> > Wordstar product. People were begging and pleading with them to patch |
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> > it to recognize subdirectories. Instead, Micropro dropped Wordstar, and |
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> > came up with a "user friendly" menu-driven abortion called Wordstar |
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> > 2000. That was the end. |
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> > |
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> > Do you see a pattern here? |
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|
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> The pattern I see is that of selecting only changes that failed and |
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> implying they are the norm. |
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> |
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> Why not add other improvements that were so bad, like the switch from |
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> floppy disks to hard disks, or CDs to DVDs? Companies try to predict |
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> where the market should go so they can lead. No one gets it right all |
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> the time, the ones that survive are those that get it right often enough. |
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> The ones that are most likely to fail are those that never try to |
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> innovate in case someone doesn't like it. |
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|
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Floppy disks were being sold long after hard disks were invented. |
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Ditto for CDs after DVDs came out. If Coca Cola had brought out "New |
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Coke" *IN ADDITION TO" "Coke Classic", it wouldn't have been a problem. |
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"New Coke" would've died more quickly, and Coca Cola wouldn't have seen |
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so much backlash. Corporations (IBM's biggest customers) were begging |
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and pleading for ATs with a 386 CPU, not proprietary PS/2s. IBM ceased |
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to manufacture ATs, and said PS/2s or nothing. IBM is no longer a force |
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in the corporate desktop market. If Micropro had added directory |
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support to Wordstar 3.3, it would've been around a lot longer, and |
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Wordstar 2000 wouldn't have been the death blow it was. |
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|
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Hard drives and DVDs competed against their predecessors and won. |
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They were obviously superior. But if your new and allegedly "improved" |
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product can't stand on its own 2 feet and compete against older |
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generation products, and you have to shut down or drop support for the |
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older products for the new one to survive, then it's obvious that the |
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"new and improved" product is a piece of crap. |
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|
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-- |
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Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org> |