Leland,
in lieu of pizza, I think a better example is the boxmakers.
DELL, CPQ, HWP, GTW .... all makes about the same products. A super technoid may argue that one uses a super dooper hard disk vs a not so great sound card or whatever. To the average consumer, none of us can tell the difference.
So it comes down to cost, marketing, strategies, market share, execution. The cellphone business has reached this stage. I don't think the majority of consumers can tell us whether they own a GSM, CDMA, iDEN or TDMA phone. Other than sound quality, I am certain that most don't know how to explain the difference between analog or digital.
There comes a time that QC needs to adopt the MSFT game plan. Could there be too much attention on engineering and not enough on marketing? White's departure to head SpinCo may be a great opportunity to bring in leadership change in that direction. IBM went that route with Gerstner and who knows where IBM would be today if they had picked someone else. I think a seasoned pro from the cut throat consumer electronics, such as Best Buy or Circuit City, would greatly compliment the engineers like Dr. J.
Then again, I think there is a guy named Chainsaw something who is looking for a joy also.
Ramsey |
