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Technology Computing, programming, science, electronics, telecommunications, etc. |
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12-29-2014, 03:08 PM | #1 | |
Lecturer
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Carmel, Indiana
Posts: 761
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Commodore
TW,
The whole reason for Commodore's success was that they could make computers more cheaply than anyone else. They did in 4 chips what other companies did in 6. Because they owned MOS Technologies, they were vertically integrated and could make their own chips, further driving down the costs. They also cut costs by not investing in development or training programs for their resellers, instead offloading much of it to third parties, thereby cutting the costs even further. Very low costs of goods sold and lowered selling and general administrative expenses (you can't expense many of these programs per unit). That's exactly why Commodore succeeded. They were beyond cheap when it came to production and offloaded everything to dealer networks. Ensoniq was (mostly) the same way. Commodore was competing on price with several companies at the time, and was selling in the middle of a video game crash. They failed because they kept that mindset when companies were buying computers by the truckload, and instead of investing in what the market wanted, which was a better support model and IBM compatibles, they kept pushing out the same ten year old chips on incompatible platforms, and made no investments or development in selling to businesses or higher than bottom dollar consumers. Dell, Compaq, and others cleaned their clock there, while the resurgent video game systems took out the low end. The best examples of innovators were: Intel, who has constantly reinvented itself over the years with chip design as processes changed. Apple, who also reinvented themselves and acquired NeXT as part of the process. Dropbox, who used analytics to test out product features and offerings Google, who develops and constantly evaluates new product offerings Definitions: Sensitivity Analysis = conducting small tests of new product offerings on select communities to determine probability of success/failure Pivot = When one takes a look at the original mission of the company, notices that it will not succeed as intended, and redirects it in a different, hopefully more successful, direction If you want to stay in touch....Facebook. I hardly use this anymore and get UT and classicman on my feed anyway there. Quote:
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12-29-2014, 04:36 PM | #2 |
Radical Centrist
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
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