Comments on: Re: IT Isn’t (Just) Electricity http://www.redmonk.com/cote/2006/02/16/re-it-isnt-just-electricity/ One foot in the muck, the other in utopia Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:43:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Fraxas http://www.redmonk.com/cote/2006/02/16/re-it-isnt-just-electricity/#comment-30 Fraxas Thu, 16 Feb 2006 20:05:47 +0000 http://www.redmonk.com/cote/wp/?p=13#comment-30 I certainly would never disagree with you about whether there's room for differentiation in the marketplace. But right now, a lot of that differentiation is happening on a client-by-client basis, rather than a marketplace basis; right now, if you want a 3 slot toaster, you go to Williams-Sonoma and ask a dude in a green apron where the 3 slot toasters are. You don't call up Dualit and get them to make one for you. I think the fact that companies still *do* have to call up manufacturers and get customized software demonstrates some real immaturity in the marketplace; there are very few ways to get good information about everything that's out there (present redmonk company excepted!), and we have a culture of wanting not to make do with anything that's slightly out of line with our requirements We're moving forward, slowly, toward a world where you shop around until you find a product with features you can live with and then buy (subscribe to?) that. But that's not going to happen without a lot of resistance from the big software-customization houses that are out there. I think it'll be a generational thing, with the people born in 1990 who have had access to the web and to web-based services since they were old enough to read truly driving the commodity-software-service market once they get old enough to make purchasing decisions for medium- and large-size corporations. I certainly would never disagree with you about whether there’s room for differentiation in the marketplace. But right now, a lot of that differentiation is happening on a client-by-client basis, rather than a marketplace basis; right now, if you want a 3 slot toaster, you go to Williams-Sonoma and ask a dude in a green apron where the 3 slot toasters are. You don’t call up Dualit and get them to make one for you.

I think the fact that companies still *do* have to call up manufacturers and get customized software demonstrates some real immaturity in the marketplace; there are very few ways to get good information about everything that’s out there (present redmonk company excepted!), and we have a culture of wanting not to make do with anything that’s slightly out of line with our requirements We’re moving forward, slowly, toward a world where you shop around until you find a product with features you can live with and then buy (subscribe to?) that. But that’s not going to happen without a lot of resistance from the big software-customization houses that are out there. I think it’ll be a generational thing, with the people born in 1990 who have had access to the web and to web-based services since they were old enough to read truly driving the commodity-software-service market once they get old enough to make purchasing decisions for medium- and large-size corporations.

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