If Microsoft launched the iPod

Found an amusing parody that pokes fun at the difference between Microsoft and Apple in the product management department.

It’s amazing how well Apple’s approach works (in a word: simplicity). Why is it that so few companies emulate Apple’s approach? My take is that product management is generally more often feature-focused than user-focused. This is especially true at large companies, where many stakeholders insert their preferences into the product development process. Most of these stakeholders are not in tune with the customer (even if they think they are), because they don’t invest the time watching customers. And when they do, they draw sweeping conclusions from a sample size of 2. The end-product is then destined to become a mish-mash of trade-offs made to keep corporate stakeholders happy (all of whom have varying opinions, motivations, and priorities). This is just the nature of large organizations, and it takes a lot of leadership from the very top (sustained over a long period of time) to infuse a focus on the customer into a company’s culture.

November 21, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized 

Comments

Leave a Reply