by Alan Langford | 2008-01-29 | Observations on Everything
It used to be that when one software company acquired another, it was frequently as much an acquisition of a customer base as it was one of technology. Often it was a “strategic acquisition” which frequently meant taking a competitor out.
These sorts of acquisitions are the worst: Some innovative company gives a major player a hard time by delivering a great product. It develops a fiercely loyal customer base. “Majorco” users start to ask “when are you going to implement feature X like ‘Smallco’ does”? Unfortunately feature X requires a complete re-write of the major company’s fragile solution, and being constantly reminded of this is no fun. So what does the major player do? Simple, acquire Smallco and throw their technology away. All the customers who hated you now really hate you, but they now have no choice and the customer bleed stops.
As a customer I’ve had this happen to me more than once, and it sucks. I’ve dropped entire lines of business partially because I couldn’t bear working with the purchaser’s sorry-ass excuse for a product.
The integration process must be something else in these situations too. The guys who run Smallco are now rich. They have a contract that makes them hang around and say nice things about Majorco for a couple of years. Then they can go off and do what they want. The rest of the staff, at least those who survive “cost efficiencies”, have a choice of working with a product they probably hate, or finding new employment.
In the open source era, customers are defended from this sort of thing. (more…)
by Alan Langford | 2007-12-12 | Observations on Everything
I originally sent this to a specific company, but I think it applies more broadly, so here’s a generic version:
Last week, I purchased a new laptop from your company. I plan to use Linux on this system. Although Ubuntu installs and runs successfully, there are several issues with the display, sound system, and other features (I haven’t even got to the web cam yet). These issues limit my ability to enjoy the new system.
As a highly technical user, I am confident that I will overcome these issues. However I should not have to. There is a lot of support for your older hardware in the community, but not for newer systems. This implies that as a company, you offer little to no support to the community and they have to figure things out by trial and error.
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by Alan Langford | 2007-10-28 | Observations on Everything
Canadians: Want to help your country become globally competitive? Buy American!
If that sounds like a contradiction… (more…)
by Alan Langford | 2007-09-20 | Observations on Everything
In principle, the “network is the system” idea has a lot of merit. The benefits of having all your data stored in some reliable, secure, redundant database that’s centrally managed and hooking into it with whatever device is at hand — be it a desktop machine or a cell phone — has a lot of appeal. Keeping a system available on the net, up to date with fixes and patches, and secure is no trivial job. It’s exactly the sort of thing that should be left to someone who is a professional at it.
[Revised: Less than 24 hours after I posted this, I received a phone call from a salesforce.com representative, apologizing for the misuse of my information. My understanding is that one of their partners is to blame; that the misuse originated outside their organization. I was looking forward to receiving more details in an e-mail, but in preparing to let their mail pass my spam defences, I messed up — and all mail has been bounced from late Friday through most of the weekend. Hopefully they will re-send it so I can add more factual information to this. At this point, it’s clear that at least Salesforce takes this sort of misuse very seriously, and I have accepted their apology.] (more…) by Alan Langford | 2007-06-21 | Observations on Everything
I was out with a friend last night and we got onto the subject of how it seemed difficult for smart people to take advantage of simple opportunities. I’ve both seen and been the guy who sees a market opportunity far ahead of the pack, moves quickly to seize the opportunity, but ultimately fails to make it.
The good news is that I’m developing a better understanding of why this happens and I’m going to tell all.
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