Uwe C. Schroeder wrote:
> On Saturday 29 November 2003 01:27 pm, Randolf Richardson wrote:
>>
>> The marketplace "used to" do the right thing. Now the vast majority
>>of decision makers are impressed by fancy looking marketing campaigns and
>>stupidly believe everything that's published by well-known brand names,
>>even when no brand name loyalty exists. The worst problem with regards to
>>this is that decisions are often made based on "what the majority of other
>>people are supposedly doing" rather than "what actually best fits the needs
>>of the project."
>
> Actually what I saw a lot is that the decision is made by middle to upper
> management. In order to avoid being blamed for "wrong decision" a lot of thos
> decision makers simply stick to the market leaders. If the stuff then doesn't
> work, their boss will always accept the excuse "but it's the market leader".
> Therefor the decisionmakers job is safe.
It's not an entirely irrational response either. The supply of labor
that has sufficient knowledge to support the better, but less well
known technology is more restricted, less commoditized, and therefore
pricier. Additionally, the risk associated with a product line which
is not a market leader assumes a possibility of incurring large
switching costs in the event that the product line fails. The benefits
of the superior niche technology have to outweigh those risks. Some
firms will take the risk, others won't. Over the long term, if the
superior technology + small market share proponents are correct, those
firms that take the risk will be rewarded and those that don't,
running inefficient legacy systems will be punished for their
less-than-stellar productivity. But it could be that taking the risk
was unwarranted, and those firms that did will be punished for
choosing an arcane, unsupportable technology...
In other words, I'm still waiting for an office suite for my Amiga...
;-)
Mike Mascari
mascarm@mascari.com