I am in the middle of reading "Focus" by Al Ries, and thought it would be valuable reading for Selwyn and Richard and ANY developer wanting to make their enterprise a profitable one. It is advice on corporate competitiveness that is very appropos to the arrival of version 5, which I am expecting will open up the Alpha development market.
An example of successful focus is Starbucks. All they sell is coffee. One product. They are opening stores right next to other sources of coffee (and good ones) and doing great. Within the niche of coffee Starbucks has the most varieties of cappucino, frappacino, latte etc etc etc. The model has been copied and works. Why? They dominate the niche.
The book was written in 1996 and the very clear and well argued message is specialize and focus on your market niche and avoid being all things at all costs. Ries discusses the misfortunes of all the big companies that have diversified at great cost compared to those that stayed focused with great returns. Of interest Microsoft in 1996 was on top of the mountain, and Ries anticipated they would be unable to resist diversifying, and losing focus. Now we see they are moving out from software to hardware and TV stuff. Bad move, Microsoft is gonna lose money. They should stick to PC business software. Period.
The good news is that the future for a company like Alpha Software is excellent, with similar scope for developers, especially if Microsoft is going soft on its focus. Alpha Software will not succeed by tackling Microsoft head on. To really succeed they (we) need to understand the database software market and exactly what makes Alpha Software unique. Once the Alpha Software niche is understood they must possess it, and dominate it so everyone identifies that niche with Alpha Software...
I am quite impressed with the ideas in the book and would love to hear what others see as the market niche for Alpha Software. What is it's specialty? How is it different from Access, FoxPro, FilePro etc? And most important, how is it better?
An example of successful focus is Starbucks. All they sell is coffee. One product. They are opening stores right next to other sources of coffee (and good ones) and doing great. Within the niche of coffee Starbucks has the most varieties of cappucino, frappacino, latte etc etc etc. The model has been copied and works. Why? They dominate the niche.
The book was written in 1996 and the very clear and well argued message is specialize and focus on your market niche and avoid being all things at all costs. Ries discusses the misfortunes of all the big companies that have diversified at great cost compared to those that stayed focused with great returns. Of interest Microsoft in 1996 was on top of the mountain, and Ries anticipated they would be unable to resist diversifying, and losing focus. Now we see they are moving out from software to hardware and TV stuff. Bad move, Microsoft is gonna lose money. They should stick to PC business software. Period.
The good news is that the future for a company like Alpha Software is excellent, with similar scope for developers, especially if Microsoft is going soft on its focus. Alpha Software will not succeed by tackling Microsoft head on. To really succeed they (we) need to understand the database software market and exactly what makes Alpha Software unique. Once the Alpha Software niche is understood they must possess it, and dominate it so everyone identifies that niche with Alpha Software...
I am quite impressed with the ideas in the book and would love to hear what others see as the market niche for Alpha Software. What is it's specialty? How is it different from Access, FoxPro, FilePro etc? And most important, how is it better?