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Subject:Re: Know the New Economy From:"Dick Margulis" <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 29 Apr 2000 19:24:03 -0400
Andrew Plato wrote:
>
>Hasn't Betamax, Novell, Apple, or SCSI taught us anything. Being "the best"
>DOESN'T MATTER. The new economy does not always reward the best. It rewards
>those that can move, change, and distribute quickly and effectively.
True enough, but the flip side of this observation is that companies can succeed in a niche market. Sure, Sony would have loved for Betamax to have beaten out VHS. But they have made an awful lot of lemonade by capturing the professional video market with their clearly superior product. Because the numbers are small, they can keep the price high and continue to make a tidy profit on that line.
Similarly, Apple still has most of the professional graphics market persuaded that their machines are the sine qua non of commercial graphics production. This enables them to keep the price high.
The same can be said for Frame, Interleaf (as badly as they've bungled their marketing over the years) and other high-end tools--especially those with features that take time to learn but that are of use mostly to professionals, in any field. Being the low-price, mass-market king may not be the ONLY winning strategy.
