[Sigia-l] first to market VS first to market right

[Listera]

Lada Gorlenko:

> successes and failures of Apple's strategy of first vs. first-right.

"First" is easy to figure out, you're either there or not.
However, you cannot introduce a "first-right" product *deliberately* since
only the market decides post facto if you did or not.
 
> Behind Apple's Strategy: Be Second to Market

I think the article missed a huge point that often plaques the horse-race
handicappers: other guys introduced *products,* Apple introduced a *system.*

When you get anything but an Apple digital music system (exception Sony) you
get a physical player from one company, DRM from Microsoft, often a
download/subscription service and/or music management app from a third
party, and so on. Each unit's pricing, marketing, R&D cycle, licensing, etc
are on different speed tracks. Apple offers iPod, iTunes, iTunes Music
Store, all seamlessly integrated. The WebObjects backend, aggregated
small-amount credit card processing, label licensing, standard pricing, etc
are all coordinated from a single source, and users are never bothered with
the details. Nobody can compete with that integration. Nobody has. Best Buy,
Wal-Mart, Virgin, etc are essentially gone. Napster and Real are on the
rocks, Rio already bowed out.

Disjointed product vs integrated system, that's a much bigger story than the
first/second sidetrack, and the article missed that.

---- 
Ziya

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