Please tell me how you define innovation. Must new features or approaches be successful in their first round to be considered innovation? Must they appeal to your personal tastes to be considered innovation? Is innovation, for you, the primary issue for product growth and corporate success? Is innovation, for you, the reason you recommend one product over another for your company or your clients?
Word Processors, Spreadsheets, and Project Management Software are all relatively mature products, i.e., they have been around for many years and have reached a level of sophistication and feature-richness that makes innovation more difficult. Until we get a significantly new usage or interface model for these products, they are all fundamentally the same. Innovation in these areas can hurt, especially if that innovation violates current standards or usage patterns, making document sharing difficult and requiring significant retraining of users. (There are innovative word processors being developed, check into what Dan Bricklin is doing these days.)
Innovation in Desktop Databases? I am still waiting for a good desktop version of a Client-Server database. I do not need innovation there, I need parity with the big systems. Otherwise, most spreadsheet products meet my desktop database needs. In this arena, there are relatively few real database designers and many database users. I believe the innovation needed is on the programmability and design side. Maybe a Java database would be innovative here. Would it sell?
Innovation in PIMs is still happening, especially with the growth of products like Hand Held and Palm Top computers, or General Magic's Portico and the like. It's not just a market based on ACT! anymore. This is remaining a fresh and dynamic market, with a long way to go, and the big winner is anyone's guess.
Browsers are also innovating, it just looks like Microsoft and Netscape are innovating, or at least adding features, in very similar directions. Other browsers exist and innovate in different ways. If Netscape goes down, due to product, marketing, management issues, whatever, there will still be other folks who get into the market, unless of course there is no market need. And if there is no Market need, then why is there even a need for Netscape? If the idea is to use a browser, any browser, as long as it is not Microsoft's, then there will always be someone willing to build that market.
(Office 98? I guess you are a Mac user then. Or do you use Japanese Office?) |
