SDRNewsHL SDR2009-01-26 Detroit, Vista and Customers

Listening to Customers

It occurs to me that Microsoft and the Detroit car companies have
some degree of similarity, with both giants suffering through some down
times because they listened to customers. One got slapped down just a
little bit faster, and the other will have a longer road to recovery.

Detroit enjoyed a good fifteen year run - cresting in the early
2000's-  producing SUV's. They were listening to customers who were
voting with their pocketbooks, in spite of the CAFE driven sedan
products. In fact, at least one of the Big 3 privately said that their
strategic intent was to get out of the car business, and concentrate on
building products that were both desired by customers and were highly
profitable. In order to keep the marketing machine moving - and with
the assumption of continued low gas prices, vehicles like the
Hemi-powered SUV were pulled back from the grave.

Those customers were served up by a dealer network, parts suppliers
and other stakeholders. They all had a part of the SUV business.

At the same time that auto makers were listening to their customers,
Microsoft was doing the same: Listening to their customers. Getting
trounced on security loopholes and the media production capabilities by
Apple, the game plan was to  make Vista the "Most Secure OS ever". In
order to get the type of content that Apple had negotiated with the
studios, Microsoft sought out the content protection / DRM armoring
that the studios and producers demanded. In order to keep suppliers
firmly in the Windows camp, Vista was engineered to pull through ever
increasing levels of memory and processing hardware upgrades. XP was
ready for the trash-heap.

Those customers were served up by a dealer network, integrators,
suppliers and other stakeholders - particularly in enterprise accounts. They all had a part of the PC refresh
business.

Both camps have had a slapdown. I guess you have to listen to a wide
spectrum of customers - not just the ones that you like to listen to.