Author Archives: admin

Positioning Power

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Growing your market in the modern age without knowing your positioning is like driving motorcycle down an Interstate while blindfolded.  You will lose and the resulting splatter will not be pretty. Positioning is simply establishing where on a competitive map your products are in the eyes of the market.  The concept is quite simple if you ignore for a moment the complicating factors of market maturity, multiple segments many buyer genotypes, or 3,274 other elements.  To determine one’s position you simply have to identify the issues that are of primary concern to your buyers, and either measure their attitudes about competing products and perform a realistic evaluation of all the entrants. Sounds simple, but it isn’t, and often leads to awkward issues.  Here’s an unfunny example. Silicon Strategies Marketing recently performed a series of investigations for a client to determine what the market felt was important about a services offering … Continue reading →

Anti-Oracle

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I’m starting an Internet wide office pool — pick the date and place a dollar ante on when antitrust will be filed against Oracle. Seriously, Larry is all but begging for it. With the integration of Sun into Oracle, many executives — including Ellison — said that Oracle was the IBM of the new millennia.  They waxed techno-poetically about how Oracle, and only Oracle, could provide complete iron-to-apps IT, that they owned the middle of the datacenter.  They claimed their ability to cross-integrate every element of the stack provided Oracle power that no other vendor could offer. Those statements were followed by amused FTC lawyers grunting. IBM was the original and last computing monolith.  As Ellison’s Archangels echoed, the IBM of the 1960’s provided everything a customer could want and that IBM’s floor-to-ceiling solution sets created impenetrable barriers to competition.  That is precisely why the federal government sued IBM, and … Continue reading →

Ora-gel

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Oracle, as always, has a good game plan, though they have not thought out everything under the Sun. I attended Oracle’s outbound communication extravaganza concerning the completed swallowing of Sun.  In the time from initial purchase to the final approvable by European Union regulators, Oracle has been busy deciding what parts of Sun to keep (pretty much everything), how to integrate to company (interestingly) and where to create real market value (specific).  In an event short on surprises — unless Larry did something quirky, which I missed by having to leave early — OraSun changes the game, which is the entire point of marketing. Aside from seeing “Sun” positioned over “Oracle” on all the event branding (the last time this will undoubtedly occur), the basic market strategy of the merger can be summarized as “We are your IT hub, we are specializing the center of your operations, and don’t look … Continue reading →

Brandaid

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When does a brand become detrimental to a company? Ask Google. They are having a relatively rough time with their brand this week. Google encountered trouble during the corporate equivalent of a temper tantrum. When they discovered that someone in China (presumably the government) had hacked into Google’s network and spelunked through dissident emails, Google threw a hissy fit. Executives at the all knowing Google failed to know that the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) remains one of the most ruthless around. Google should have known this since Google helped the PRC censor Internet information in order to (according to the PRC) “Properly guide Internet opinion.” Kinda evil, eh? Google’s brand started dissolving. In Google’s infancy, they adopted an informal corporate motto of “Don’t be evil.” This kindly directive even found its way into Google guiding manifesto “Ten things we know to be true”, a creed that … Continue reading →

Start-up Strategy

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BMW and Enzyte may have too much in common. While reviewing course materials for the CEO Marketing Boot Camp, I got a case of giggles. In the class we mention how BMW does branding. BMW has a legendary brand that was anything but accidental. In fact most readers can recite the BMW slogan from memory and yet never question it. That is how good BMW is at defining and communicating their brand — they have us all educated and convinced. The BMW slogan is interesting to marketing experts because it never mentions automobiles or technology (and BMWs are technology products). BMW claims to provide the “ultimate driving experience.” Ultimate means the best. Driving is a largely male oriented passion. Experiences are what we live for. So BMW offers a greatly enhanced male life, just like Enzyte claims. I’m sure the people at BMW are not happy about this comparison because … Continue reading →

App Avalanche

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Investor’s Business Daily had an interesting report from ABI Research showing that now, and through 2014, iPhones and gPhones will dominate the smart phone application platform market. Combined they will own about 60% of the market in the out years, with all other competitors in the ‘other’ category. That includes Microsoft.

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Open Changes

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Desperate times create desperate marketers. Such seems to be the case with Sequoia Voting Systems, a manufacturer of electronic voting machines (known among libertarians as ‘election hijacking devices’). Sequoia recently announced that they were opening the source code for their Frontier balloting systems. A wise move, aside from the fact that it exposes Frontier as being Microsoft based. I know nobody who would trust their vote to be counted by the same people who brought you Clippy (It looks like you are trying to vote. Would you like me to cast your ballot for you?). For reader who have resided in Tora Bora for the past decade, electronic voting machines were thrust upon the American public in a fit of panic. In the 2000 elections, a few senile seniors in Florida could not navigate paper ballots. Since the appointment of the next president was to be based on fewer votes … Continue reading →