When Network Externalities Fail Make Glue

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | February 28, 2002

Network Externalities has been the mantra among Hi-Tech new ventures. They provide a believable logic behind their revenue forecasts that predict exponential growth and permanent 90% market-share in an untapped market. Yet sometimes this fairy-tale just ain’t so. What are network externalities? They are reasons that induce the market to accept a solution as a…

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The Nitty-Gritty of Product Management

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | February 22, 2002

In bringing new technologies to market, the whole team focuses on the vision. Developers are led by architects offering visions of clean architecture and working on the next new thing. Customers are led by sales executives offering visions of increased business profits or better consumer lifestyles and being the innovators among their peers. Financiers are…

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Product Plans Gone Awry

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | February 18, 2002

I attended the DCI (Digital Consulting Inc.: www.dci.com) CRM conference on Wednesday, February 13, to discover that some product visions have gone awry in enterprise solutions. Two competing trends have forced a tradeoff that leaves solutions short of speed and robustness. The browser-based user-interface and the PDA. For the truly thin-client enterprise solution, such as…

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