M&M sorting machine

[tw]

Originally Posted by mbpark

We went over what made Commodore succeed in detail (the engineering team there was all ex-C= engineers who designed the C= 64). We talked about how to properly finance companies, and how to determine the success or failure of a product. We also talked about how being an entrepreneur is serial, and how most ventures will fail. We also talked a lot about sensitivity testing and pivots.

Bigger Commodore story was why it failed. A famous bumper sticker read, "Will Rogers never met Jack Tramiel." Tramiel learned enough to realize electronics were replacing mechanical office equipment. So he did try to advance with the times. But he had two problems. One was an ongoing war with his primary investor Gould. The other was his finance dominated management style where only he could approve any expensive greater than $1000. Innovators could not be trusted.

Tramiel appears to demonstrate what happens with age. He became more entrenched; enhanced his micromanagement style. This resulted in Atari's downfall. A shame really since Atari's intent was to do something similar what PlayStation and Xbox are doing today. Those promises never happened.

What is sensitivity testing and pivots?

What or who does this course cite as the current innovators of our time? And why?

[lumberjim]

tw, as usual, your main agenda is trolling. Your first impulse is to cast judgement on others. one can only assume it's done in order to make yourself feel better. see how insightful I am? see how dull and average the rest of you are?

cock

[mbpark]

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.

Originally Posted by tw

Bigger Commodore story was why it failed. A famous bumper sticker read, "Will Rogers never met Jack Tramiel." Tramiel learned enough to realize electronics were replacing mechanical office equipment. So he did try to advance with the times. But he had two problems. One was an ongoing war with his primary investor Gould. The other was his finance dominated management style where only he could approve any expensive greater than $1000. Innovators could not be trusted.

Tramiel appears to demonstrate what happens with age. He became more entrenched; enhanced his micromanagement style. This resulted in Atari's downfall. A shame really since Atari's intent was to do something similar what PlayStation and Xbox are doing today. Those promises never happened.

What is sensitivity testing and pivots?

What or who does this course cite as the current innovators of our time? And why?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by mbpark

If you want to stay in touch....Facebook.

Speaking of companies that have already begun their decline...

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by mbpark

If you want to stay in touch....Facebook. I hardly use this anymore and get UT and classicman on my feed anyway there.

Aaaaand I've just unfriended you on FB

As I am going to be doing soon to all ex-Dwellars.

Dance with the one that brung ya.

[lumberjim]

that's not how this works. that's not how ANY of this works!

[classicman]

Bwahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[tw]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Speaking of companies that have already begun their decline...

Decline usually is due to factors such as cost controls that stifle the only reason for growth (innovation). Or a disruptive innovation (ie Innovator's Dilemma) that blindsides a company (the reason for a pivot).

A perfect example of pivot was when they spent all night showing Bill Gates the internet. He had no idea it existed. Like DEC, Microsoft was dooming itself into bankruptcy. Gates did something that only true business leaders can do. In but a few years, he pivoted Microsoft to address this disruptive innovation.

If FB must pivot, what is a disruptive innovation that threatens it existence?

[tw]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

that's not how this works. that's not how ANY of this works!

- David Rossi.

Is it acceptable to plagiarize someone if that someone is a fictional character?

[Griff]

teh Cellar community

[Undertoad]

[glatt]

Originally Posted by tw

If FB must pivot, what is a disruptive innovation that threatens it existence?

People who spew politics on social media.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by tw

... If FB must pivot, what is a disruptive innovation that threatens it existence?

How Anonymous Revolutionized Revolt
http://www.mintpressnews.com/anonymo...revolt/200200/

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by tw

Decline usually is due to factors such as cost controls that stifle the only reason for growth (innovation).

The problem is that Facebook doesn't make a real product, they merely sell ourselves back to ourselves. Their only room for innovation is to make that process more ubiquitous and addictive. In that way they are a lot like the tobacco industry--while many are addicted, most would also admit that the service/product is bad for you, and that they hope to quit one day. Once society in general begins to look down on the product's usage, the decline is inevitable. I give it no more than 4 more years before Facebook is equivalent to MySpace. (By comparison, I think LinkedIn will continue to shuffle along for decades more, because despite being lame and uninteresting it doesn't generate any addictive or unattractive behaviors in its users, and provides an actual service that people sometimes need, i.e. business contacts.)

[Griff]

At Lil Pete's college using LinkedIn is actually part of classwork. They're making contacts more deliberately than when I was in school. Of course I knew my bartender better...