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The conventional wisdom is that products that have a strong established base of users can often trump higher-quality alternatives. But recent research suggests otherwise.
The conventional wisdom is that products that have a strong established base of users can often trump higher quality alternatives. But recent research suggests otherwise.
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6 Comments On: How Quality Drives the Rise and Fall of High-Tech Products
True.. but this holds true when majority of consumers are fence-sitters..
I have to question the authors’ methodology. The definition of “quality” seems extremely subjective. For the historical products and categories that you analyzed, how did you determine what brand attributes were valued by customers at the time, and how did you weigh those attributes?
You measured quality as determined by “four of the most respected and widely circulated computer magazines of the time”. In the 1980s and 1990s, did these four (unnamed) magazines have consistent standards and testing methods? Further, this was a period when published reviews were heavily influenced by manufacturers, especially Microsoft. It’s well-documented that Microsoft would retaliate against publications that dared to print negative, or even equivocal, reviews of its products. (InfoWorld is a good example.) Microsoft would commonly refuse to allow such publications to review future products, which was, in essence, a death sentence for the publications. As a result, reviews often had little or no correspondence with reality, and many readers knew it.
I’d like to see how you determined what the actual measures of quality were, determined historical consumer preferences for quality (vs. price, for example), and corrected for editorial changes, biases and manufacturer influence in the reviews.
Best wishes,
Leonard Feldman
Why does the free Linux operating system not make more headway against Microsoft Windows?
This question is not that simple to answer as there is much more than quality at play. Some of it is market dominance, some of it is support and training related. But if you were to question quality, it’s good to keep in mind that the point of the “bazaar” (aka Linux) influence on quality is that you have a very very large distributed and self correcting quality management developer and testing teams vs the “cathedral” (aka Microsoft) where you have a much smaller group which is responsible for the quality of the product.
The network effect can also impact people’s perception of quality. Poor cross producet compatibility in the case of word processing software has certainly played in Microsoft’s favour – the market leader for well over a decide now. Blog post on the topic: http://wp.me/pU9dc-cs
I think product quality means customer perspective, this perspective is boosted by media penetration
Using Apple as the example – this company poured millions into it’s marketing campaign for the iPod. It’s true that quality (and innovation) are needed for success but significant market ‘clout’ is hard to beat! Many, many superior products have fallen behind lesser ones due to inadequate promotion.