Wednesday, November 14, 2007

[IBM Lotus Symphony] Buzz

IBM Lotus shifts part of its marketing focus to homemade YouTube videos...

We hope you enjoyed the video. While it is all in good fun, let's not lose the sight of a really important point.... whether your IT budget is multi-millions of dollars or your own personal bank account, you have better things to be doing with your money. Many companies and individuals are paying large amounts of money for basic office productivity capabilities like word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.


For many organizations, only a fraction of the employees or members actually use advanced features of Microsoft Office. For other users, IBM Lotus Symphony offers you a choice--one that supports ODF and Microsoft Office document formats, protects future access to documents and lets you stop feeding the machine. Because, surely, there is something better you can be doing with your IT budget?

I remember a classic Bill Gates quote, back in the early days of the productivity application suite competition, when Lotus was engaging in SmartSuite price competition with Office.  Gates commented "It's not a good idea to get into price competition with somebody who has more money than you do"...

Buzz

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peter,

Are you saying that Microsoft will pay people to use Microsoft Office?

Because if Symphony is free, that's all that they can use that "more money" for...

Actually, I just realised - if we're talking Office 2007, you couldn't pay me to use it. I'd refuse, and take one of the free options instead. It's less painful...

Anonymous said...

Unless, of course, your revenue isn't dependent on that price, and your costs are a tiny fraction of that competitor's.

If you can spend a minimal amount of development to shrink a competitor's cash cow to nothing, it's a smart move. And one that Microsoft's very familiar with.

Can you say "Netscape?"

pbokelly said...

Competitive alternatives are good for the entire market -- it's not a one-size-fits-all scenario...

Anonymous said...

I agree that competition is good for the market. :-)

I miss Excel sometimes, now that I'm not using Office. But then, that's to be expected for a while...