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Authored by: symbolset on Friday, November 02 2012 @ 04:06 AM EDT |
Tim Cook said as much on launch. But this is tech. We eat our own before
somebody else can.
Let me put this another way that illuminates why
"cannibalize" is to me a
dirty word promulgated by MBAs lacking in moral and
competitive values.
The basic assumption here is that you make product A. A
certain portion of
your customers purchase product A not because it's the
perfect object of
their desire, but because it's the nearest approximate. By
continuing to
only offer product A you can continue to get this customer's
money without
giving them what they really want. This is the "desirable
result" of a non-
canniballization strategy: customers who didn't get what they
wanted, but
who gave you their money anyway.
This works fine in a monopoly,
but it gives competitors an opening in the
real world to more closely match the
customer's true desire and steal the
customer away from you. From a real
competitor's point of view then, the
right thing to do is to build a protective
wall around your customers by
cannibalizing you own products as much as you
can, as fast as you can.
That way no customer need stray away from you to find
what he truly
wants.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 02 2012 @ 06:59 PM EDT |
The tablet market is price sensitive. Microsoft appears to have designed
the surface to compete with the iPad 2 and net books at the same time.
Unfortunately the iPad 3, iPad Jr., Amazon Kindle line, and various Android
tablets are all better deals for both a price and capability.
So Apple loses sales of the big iPad, but retains customers. Smart move.
Meanwhile Microsoft tablets end up in the remainder aisle (see the Register
article below for details).
Wayne
http://madhatter.ca
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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