23 Feb 10 New Product Release Cycles – what is wrong?
I have been troubled by a couple of things in the last few weeks – why is it that when a new product comes out from someone new in the game the incumbent is written-off very quickly. Take the example of Andriod – Google is shipping 60,000 phones a day. And the assertion thus that Microsoft should be afraid even though it sold 2o million phones in 2008. Why is it that Apple has quickly managed to threaten Nokia, Microsoft and RIM in short space of time. Besides a superior product I think the reason is more entrenched in product release cycles.
If Nokia and Microsoft have been in the business way longer than Apple, they should have been able to react at lightning speeds to counter Apple. It was known for a long time that Google will enter the mobile space but why didn’t Microsoft react fast and come out with something hard-hitting? Same goes for search, real-time platforms, social networking etc. So why do we see this?
I think the real reason is the time established companies take to bring in new product releases. This is in my opinion nothing to do with the usual adage of – big companies are slow or reactive and bureaucratic . But that there is no defined process to have a frequent defined new product releases even if it is only with a set of small feature additions/edits. By this I do not mean security patches. The only company that is good at regular and frequent new product releases is Apple. Apple tends to do a complete overhaul of it’s product line every 18-24 months and small regular releases and upgrades every 6-12 months. The unofficial buying guide for Apple products sums it beautifully. Which other company has such predictable new product release cycles and overhauls? Other than Apple, Facebook and in some areas (like search) Google nobody does this well.
A process to make this happen in a large corporate will make sure it remains competitive and any new innovative idea is put into the market soon rather than wait for a new player to proves it’s worth – when it might become too late. If Microsoft and Nokia had such processes in place would we see such threats to it’s existence in the mobile space?
I doubt even companies like Google have such processes in place – which is why we see reactive and panic stricken incomplete and incompetent product releases like Google Buzz to catch up with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Orkut strategy was totally broken and even in regions where Orkut was big they are now loosing ground as they cannot keep up with product/feature releases from Facebook.
So what makes Apple so good at this? I think the reason is their involvement in selling hardware which needs frequent new releases and overhauls. Which means that they have managed to do this for every product – whether software or hardware. Same might be for Microsoft when it comes to Xbox, but in other areas they don’t think that way.
Hardware industries can teach these web companies a few good lessons on new product release cycles.
Tags: Android, Apple, entrepreneurship, Facebook, Google, hardware, Microsoft, new product, Nokia, Orkut, product, Product Development, release cycles, start-up, Twitter, web
17 Feb 10 Innovation – mutation or big bang theory?
Innovation is a new way of doing something or “new stuff that is made useful”. It may refer to incremental and emergent or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations.
And it is this definition which made me wonder how one looks at innovation in different places. When it is incremental it is more like mutation within an organisation. An idea that goes through a change between silos due to exchange of ideas, inspiration from other areas, problems reaching or expanding customer base or just accidental discovery. More often than not incremental change doesn’t require inventing anything new. It is often just a matter of combining and recombining capabilities across disciplines, organizations, and sectors. These capabilities are usually kept under wraps and difficult to access. And opportunities in areas like healthcare, education, energy etc needs more opening up of these so more cross pollination and mutation might occur for us to see better solutions. Data sharing is one of the most important aspects of this mutation as it is with biological process of mutation.
The Big bang innovation is revolutionary changes that result from radically different way of thinking a problem and it’s probably solutions. Each big bang innovation is followed by an era of mutation with small changes until another big bang innovation happens in the area. One of the best examples of big bang innovation is invention and commercialisation of microchip or integrated circuits by Robert Norton Noyce who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel giving Silicon valley it’s name. Ever since Moor’s law has made sure small innovation or mutation keeps innovation alive.
While there is nothing new in what I have discussed above. The biggest question facing those entrepreneurs, itching to build a new product, disrupt the norm, innovate and scale an organisation, is what kind of product to build and what kind of innovation to work on. Big bang innovations are very difficult and one sees a lots of failures. And the small innovations resulting from mutations are mistaken for big ones – typically how a feature is mistaken for a product. A clear understanding of the two will help the founders decide how to build the company, size it, raise funding, build, scale, target customers and look at possible exits. More often the big bangs take deep pockets and longer to succeed as they need mass adoption to succeed too – Google, Ebay, Amazon being typical examples. Mutations more often last for a short time, and target small niche markets thus surviving by being acquired quickly. Small changes caused by need, combination of disparate products/services and being in a risky environment where they can become obsolete quickly.
Google is probably the best example of a big bang which has a great ecosystem for mutations so they survive for a long time to come – just as biological organisms do. Other such examples are Microsoft, Facebook, IBM and Amazon – all big bangs who now are in constant mutation mode to make sure they survive the hostile environment they live in.
Before one starts on the entrepreneurship journey one needs to know what innovation they are working on. So what innovation are you? Big bang or mutations – remember there cannot be many big bangs 
Tags: Amazon, Ebay, entrepreneurship, Facebook, Google, innovation, Microsoft, mutation, start-up, Twitter
09 Aug 09 A Day at Tomorrow’s Web 09
I spent the whole day yesterday with some amazing people at Tommorow’s Web, a conference by young minds to discuss the future of Internet and Technology industry. It brought together young technology entrepreneurs giving their unique perspective on the Internet and future technologies. An excellent event put together by Grant Bell and Rob Day. The best part was no one of my age (oh shut up!!) was allowed to speak on stage .
I shall refrain from calling all those I met yesterday as “young ‘uns” and call them “smart minds” as the presentations they gave were well above what I have heard many grown ups give. The quality of talks and content was well beyond my expectations. The talks ranged from well thought out, grounded and brilliant advice to freelancers from Anna Debenham to in-depth technical discussion on opening the web with a lot of API love by Jamie Rumbelow. A very confident and love your work from Nick Pellant to very sound design and user experience discussion by Greg Cooper. Not to be left behind a very well thought out business plan for Giglocator by James Proud. Meaghan Fitzgerald and Anna Debenham have covered the happenings at the conference.
While I loved being at the event reminiscing what I did when I was 16 years old – all I could think about was debating on political issues and concentrating on getting to a good university. Growing up in India in a high pressured environment where the T-shirts one wears was more important than how smart you are, there was no choice. Hence I think in some way I see the conference as liberation of the youth – allowed to do what they feel is right. Probably also because this is a choice these young entrepreneurs make and have little to fear of failure.
While I think the liberation of the youth and doing what one loves to do is a right thing as I always tell myself and any passionate entrepreneur, I fear for some of these smart minds as I think a lot of them do not have a “Plan B”. Perhaps I am being cynical, perhaps I am being practical or maybe plain insane. But the emphasis on going to university is what I grew up with and this is still the main driver in the east and in the US. While there is a lot of talk about how universities are failing the youth, not keeping up with the changes in technology, society, expectations etc – I think it’s these smart minds who will drive the change. And keeping them out of university is a “Bad Idea”. So is this “liberation of the youth” really right?
While I loved what a lot of them are doing – I think some of them are not really sustainable businesses over a longer term and some will fail. Some of these smart ones have never ever failed and I would hope they never do but having a plan B will make them more prepared and something to fall back on. I agree with James Dyson that what UK needs is more people going to university to study science and engineering and spend time learning things in depth – this is key to a sustainable UK economy.
I don’t mean to discourage any of the smart minds I met yesterday. I only think their potential is huge and needs to be nurtured and they need to have a plan B. And I think going to university is a key to that. I am by no means being a pessimist – I am an optimist and I think these smart ones have a great future.
On another note – where were BBC, Nesta, VC’s and other organisations who talk about future of UK’s technology scene but not around to cover such a promising event?
Tags: conference, entrepreneurship, internet, start-up, technology, Tomorrow's Web, UK, web
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