The downside of refusing to license
The comments to an EETimes post entitled The biggest product turkeys of all time are amusing and include mention of the Osborne computer and even Gary Kildall. There were different opinions on BetaMax, which was first up in the initial list of turkeys.
From within, a comment that reflects LBE's understanding of VHS v. BetaMax:
The war was lost to simple greed, not picture or sound quality. Sony didn't license Beta initially to other makers, and then later (too little, too late) to a small handful. By that point, everyone and his brother were making VHS machines, and price competition effectively shut Beta out of the volume mainstream consumer market.
On the Osborne, one commenter wrote:
Osborne's second portable computer never saw sun light. Some engineers begun to talk about the next up-coming Osborne (Executive?); purchases of the Osborne 1 stoped and the company closed. A shame...
And one commenter bashed a law firm:
Actually DIVX is a 2for. DIVX was the invention of a law firm and the dearly departed Circuit City. Though it was poorly received, CC decided to focus on it to the exclusion of DVDs and DVD players. Because it was a rental disguised (and priced) as a purchase (calling all ECAD companies) it wasn't just disliked but viewed as dishonest. By the time the matador delivered "el estoque final" to DIVX, CC was behind its rival, Best Buy, and never recovered. Its once thriving rental business croaked even earlier. DIVX is a very excellent example of how not create, deploy, or bet the farm on *a* new product.
From within, a comment that reflects LBE's understanding of VHS v. BetaMax:
The war was lost to simple greed, not picture or sound quality. Sony didn't license Beta initially to other makers, and then later (too little, too late) to a small handful. By that point, everyone and his brother were making VHS machines, and price competition effectively shut Beta out of the volume mainstream consumer market.
On the Osborne, one commenter wrote:
Osborne's second portable computer never saw sun light. Some engineers begun to talk about the next up-coming Osborne (Executive?); purchases of the Osborne 1 stoped and the company closed. A shame...
And one commenter bashed a law firm:
Actually DIVX is a 2for. DIVX was the invention of a law firm and the dearly departed Circuit City. Though it was poorly received, CC decided to focus on it to the exclusion of DVDs and DVD players. Because it was a rental disguised (and priced) as a purchase (calling all ECAD companies) it wasn't just disliked but viewed as dishonest. By the time the matador delivered "el estoque final" to DIVX, CC was behind its rival, Best Buy, and never recovered. Its once thriving rental business croaked even earlier. DIVX is a very excellent example of how not create, deploy, or bet the farm on *a* new product.
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 5:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home