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.