Just take a look at Microsoft. I don't think they did ANYTHING that I'd consider really strategic or smart in the last decade. It's not that they make bad products, because in general they don't. (Although they have zero idea about cool factor and usability in some of their departments) They just didn't do anything smart or unexpected that turned out to be smart in a year.
They're bleeding all over the street on a very crucial shortcoming, for example. Their whole UI architecture, which is the underpinning of almost all the user experiences in their products, is getting very old. It all originates from the DOS times, and it was pretty neat back then. But a couple of decades later, it's archaic and limiting. Just take a look at the architecture of Cocoa, or Android's UI framework or anything, really, anything that happened in the last decade. And the worst thing is that they're so heavily invested in this stuff that they can't even change easily. Silverlight is coming along nicely, but nobody's using it. Ever. MFC and Managed bullshit and all this is just another abstraction layer on top of the same old engine.
I really hope they'll get their act together. They're too big and too important to be so stupid.
On the topic of strategy... I think what most people don't realize is that it's important to have a strategy, but it's a luxury to be able to execute one. You can have the brightest idea on how you could steer a market in a certain direction or how to create a new ecosystem, but without tools to execute, you're just daydreaming. And for those of us who don't have the resources that Google or Apple commands, our best chance is to have a strategy, and hope it executes itself through coincidence. What I mean is, if you have a private jet and you want to get to a party in Rome, you get on board and go there. If you're a hobo, you hitch a hike, or take a train that is going roughly in that direction and get closer and closer to it slowly. And most of the time by the time you arrive either's everyone already drunk, or they have already ran out of booze, or most likely the party's already over. I know that we're heading in the right direction. I know that we can party like hell. I just wish we'd have the money for a ticket.
On second thought.. It's easy to always say that I could have done it better if I had an army to command. But probably the road to having an army is also paved with strategy. And probably your own strategy should be based on your capabilities. And be just as smart and surprising as Apple's, only on a smaller scale.
Apple knows what FOCUS means. They don’t try to flood the markets hundreds of good products, they need only few great ones. While the phone companies present hundreds of new phones every year, Apple just made some good (or bad :))improvements on iPhone. While the competitors split their marketing budgets into small pieces to sell everything, Apple is focusing to sell iPhone (iPods, Macs are the same topics). They don’t desperately try to come out revolutionary ideas every year, so they can give time to think to their people. But if something great pop up from somebody’s brain, they start to PUSH, PUSH, PUSH...immediately. Even if something is revolutionary, innovative...a product can’t sell itself. It used to work in the past, but the world already changed...and Apple knows that very well. Lot of people think they have the best products all over the world, but the truth is they have the best marketing machine all over the world. It’s a huge difference!
VálaszTörlésYou’re absolutely right. Having a strategy isn’t enough if it isn’t executed. But even if it is well executed could cause a lots of damage...if the base of the strategy is wrong. Lot of leaders use startegy as a magic word...hiding behind it to cover own incompetence. Right people in the right position at the right time...this is the key.
Maybe we haven’t enough money buy a ticket yet, but we can learn a lot on this journey...and we have time to prepare to fight...to strike back. ;)
My original strategy was to post a really brilliant response to your post.
VálaszTörlésHowever, I couldn't execute it efficiently because my brain was lacking in resources to come up with it ;)