On IT and beyond

While Jason is once again right, he of course profits from having built the hangout he makes use of when he needs to find the right people. On the other hand it shows that the guys from 37s know what they are doing when they are not trying to please everyone.

I guess sometimes you have to piss off some people as long as you can attract the right people – your target audience. It’s really all about focus.

Scoble writes this piece about Google calendar. I totally agree. Until today I’m not clear how one could switch to an application that lives only online without any offline representation. Since I’m travelling a lot, these situations occur where I’m not online but need a bunch of applications:

• in the train
• in the car (on the backseat, of course)
• in any cafe that does not have wifi access
• on site at companies that don’t have internet access (this happens quite often because you either can’t access their network or they don’t have wifi or the only use isolated internet PCs out of fear for viruses)

So my criticism is not specific for Google but for all applications that exist only online. Another reason, btw, why I’m totally happy with Windows Live Writer – finally I can really comfortably post offline without having to save my posts to files like in w.bloggar.

Update: Calgoo know presents a first draft of an offline application that syncs with Google calendar. Promising. True Web 2.0 style.

If you do things different from the competition, beware of the consequences. Two examples:

For many years, Apple did it different. Different processors, different operating system. While they definitely achieved their merits, the price was high. The company several times stood before its extinction and only when they decided to do it not different but better they started to get the real successes. Starting with the iPod, that used the same music format as the market (mp3) but with a better design the gained huge market shares. Next was the Intel Mac that finally allowed everybody to buy a Mac without sacrificing Windows, even if the applications used on Windows mostly were the same as on the Mac – MS Office and some browsers. Lesson learned: Don’t do it different, do it better, on top of existing standards.

The other example is HolzHer, a machine manufacturer. They decided to use a clever piece of software to be used as a frontend to program their machines. TwinCAM. Great software. Stupid CAD-interface. Every other similar software uses a text-based file format to store machine programs. Not so TwinCAM. They use a binary format and require CAD-vendors to write their own application, using COM/DCOM libraries, to write the required file format. Do I need to mention that TwinCAM is no longer used to drive HolzHer machines? Although the software was (and is) a great product, easy to use and powerful, the different approach on the interface side disqualified it for easy adoption by CAD-vendors. And since the interface to CAD-systems becomes strategic for CNC machine manufacturers, decisions had to be made.

If you are convinced that your special approach is the one to dominate the market, go ahead. But if you have the slightest doubt you might reconsider what you are planning to do. Sometimes, being to clever is simply dumb. Because individuals are dumb on average, the masses as a collective always us the most pragmatic approach. Not the most elegant one.