serving .001 of the market Message #12 Posted by Norm on 14 June 2003, 1:35 p.m., in response to message #11 by Ernie Malaga
well I hear what you are saying, but why not serve that one in a thousand. And maybe its a little better than that anyway. Maybe its 1% of the market .....
Here's the deal, we get this continuous onslaught of greed, from greedy CEO's, who feel if they scoop up 95% of the money by satisfying 95% of the customers, that its enough, and that they dont care about the other 5%, because that would 'not offer enough return on investment'. And we hear that litany so often, that we think it normal that corporations tell their faithful customers to buzz off. Not only that, as we capitulate and try to think their way, then its "give 'em an inch and they take a mile" so they discontinue every calculator worth buying, until they aren't even serving 10% of their market anymore.
Why not serve the .001 specialty applications. I was very unimpressed with pilot's calculators I saw from the non-HP sources, and would've been delighted if there was one of high integrity and of logical thought processes. And isn't that what market penetration is all about? It is to be deeply entrenched across as wide a marketplace as possible so that all the world beats a path to your door.
So while your words are persuasive, you are just giving a fig-leaf to help this new generation of ultra-selfish MBA/CEO's something to cover up their naked greed, while they run off and buy another 20,000 square foot beach-front designer home.
I would say let HP serve the pilots, and let them serve the computer software people who want a 16C. When HP has already got a calculator engineering dep't, they can keep those people busy implementing a few 'low-popularity' models rather than do something so incredibly innovative such as sign off on coloring changes on a 12CP.
You gotta realize that once the drawings are done by an engineering group, then its 'over the wall' to the production people, and these models can be built for years and years, while the engineering group works on other things. We can understand that, I do NOT think HP's MBA management can understand that. Otherwise they'd keep building HP-15C, etc., using the same production line and the old tools and specifications.
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