“We have no future because our present is too volatile. We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition.”
That's an interesting quote from that redditor: GAW is "the source of the game I love to play, and I need them to be in a strong place so that they continue to support the game." It comes from a place of love. I can't help but wonder if the customers of mission-critical vertical market software feel a similar feeling. Even if it might not come from the same place of love, I think customers have a vested interest to continue paying whatever company to continue supporting the software upon which they rely for their livelihood.
Interesting. I think it boils down to a question I heard from David Gardner, "If the company disappeared tomorrow, would you miss it?" The answer is "yes" for Games Workshop, I believe, since no Games Workshop = no Warhammer. Unless the software company in question has a similar sort of differentiation or personal relationship with the customer, I'm not quite as confident in saying "yes." This is especially true if I've felt no consumer surplus in recent years due to price growth stripping value proposition growth.
I think that's exactly right. Any company with a necessary and desirable product AND positive relationships with a customer are in a desirable position. Maybe an additional question is whether the customer faces only a short-term loss if they lose that particular product immediately or if they face a long-term loss if they lose that product even when a new business might step in to fulfill all or part of those needs? That's a hard question to test...
Another excellent quote from this Gibson book-
“We have no future because our present is too volatile. We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition.”
That's an interesting quote from that redditor: GAW is "the source of the game I love to play, and I need them to be in a strong place so that they continue to support the game." It comes from a place of love. I can't help but wonder if the customers of mission-critical vertical market software feel a similar feeling. Even if it might not come from the same place of love, I think customers have a vested interest to continue paying whatever company to continue supporting the software upon which they rely for their livelihood.
Interesting. I think it boils down to a question I heard from David Gardner, "If the company disappeared tomorrow, would you miss it?" The answer is "yes" for Games Workshop, I believe, since no Games Workshop = no Warhammer. Unless the software company in question has a similar sort of differentiation or personal relationship with the customer, I'm not quite as confident in saying "yes." This is especially true if I've felt no consumer surplus in recent years due to price growth stripping value proposition growth.
I think that's exactly right. Any company with a necessary and desirable product AND positive relationships with a customer are in a desirable position. Maybe an additional question is whether the customer faces only a short-term loss if they lose that particular product immediately or if they face a long-term loss if they lose that product even when a new business might step in to fulfill all or part of those needs? That's a hard question to test...