There are many software products that are so full of features that the features get in the way of the customer having a consistent, positive experience. I know this is true with many anti-virus programs as well as many graphic software and project manager software packages. Kathy Sierra’s Featuritis Curve provides a graphic illustration of features versus experience. On a bell-shaped curve the customer’s experience at first is that they want more features, but at some point in the product life cycle the features get in the way of the experience. See Shmula posting On Customer Obsession for more on product experience versus product features.
Posts Tagged ‘Software’
Software Product Experience Versus Features
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008The New Conglomerates – Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008I keep asking myself – are Google and Microsoft in the same industry and are they really competitors. With the latest Microsoft and Yahoo merger talks, I would conclude that Google is a successful conglomerate transcending several industries while Microsoft is mostly a software company attempting to become a successful conglomerate.
Google is a conglomerate because it dominates several, seemingly unrelated industries to include software services and advertising media. They have used their unparalleled technology innovations to enable them to focus on profitable enterprises that transcend traditional boundaries. Previously, conglomerates were made possible by unique geographic circumstances (East-India company), leveraging capital through buyouts (ITT, Litton), and branching into financial services (GE, Sears) – see Wikipedia – Conglomerates for more information on the history of conglomerates. Now, Google has shown us a new conglomerate business model based on innovative software.
If Microsoft is desiring to merge with Yahoo to dominate the Small-Medium Business (SMB) internet space, this is good because Microsoft and Yahoo! are strong in supporting small and medium size businesses. If Microsoft is merging with Yahoo! to be like Google (a successful conglomerate), this seems to be an ill-fated purpose. If Microsoft and Yahoo! want to be like Google, they need to focus on innovations versus acquisitions. Is Microsoft missing their SMB opportunity chasing after Google? See Joshua Greenbaum’s article, Can Microsoft and Yahoo Do More Than Sell Ads? The SMB Opportunity
Supply Chain Integration Services
Thursday, July 12th, 2007Supply chain software depends more and more on integrating with other software. Previously they were islands of functionality, but are now are becoming dependent on other software to feed data to them. As software integration matures, software itself is dependent on its own software supply chain to perform. This is most true in the logistics field.
