The Client:
ORBiT Group
International, a 30-year-old software
company specializing in backup and recovery
utilities for proprietary operating systems.
The Situation:
The company
had acquired a UNIX-based backup product.
The product was feature-rich, but had very
poor presentation. Management wanted a swift
introduction to assure their company was not
left behind in the race for open systems
market share.
Silicon Strategies Role: Marketing
research and product planning.
This engagement started in 1996, when
UNIX was king and Linux was barely a blip on
anyone's marketing radar.
The UNIX backup market was very crowded.
ORBiT's situation was made worse by a
corporate decision to have their product
work on only HP-UX, limiting not only market
share potential but violating the basic
premise of portability sought by UNIX
customers.
The Research: Silicon Strategies
Marketing first performed competitive
research to map the market, product
position, and unmet customer needs.
The news was not good. ORBiT's
solution faced competition from 68 different
products. Most competing products were
simpler to demonstrate, had a better visual
appeal, and most came from top-shelf
vendors.
We performed research to ascertain:
- Key issues for IT buyers of UNIX
backup and recovery software
- Market strata and where this product
stood
- Unique aspects of this product that
could be used to differentiate it from
the competition
- Real-world pricing issues
- What could be done to the product in
a short time frame to secure a small but
exploitable customer base
- Where the market was growing or not
yet fulfilled
The Strategy: Research revealed
several unmet demands in the target market,
as well as one clear path for long-term
growth:
- Customers showed extreme price
sensitivity on the lower end of the
spectrum
- Low-end products were typically
low-value, with few compelling features
- Free utilities were often sufficient
for smaller installations
Since the stated mission was to gain a
foothold in the market, the low end was
selected. Given the scope of the
competition, competitive feature sets, and
other barriers to entry, this was deemed the only
viable alternative that might generate
sufficient revenue to feed future
enhancements.
A market message was devised positioning
the product as a reasonably priced solution
that offered an extensive set of features
(there were over 250 features, and we
itemized them when appropriate) and superior
performance to free alternatives. A
development strategy was put into place to
correct defects in previous decisions and to
correct the lack of visual appeal.
We also advised ORBiT management on a
market imperative: Linux. Crowded
markets are expensive and difficult in which to gain
entry. Identifying a small but growing
market that lacked serious competitors is a
long-term goal and strategy. Linux was
at the perfect stage of IT acceptance for
ORBiT to exploit.
The Results: The results were both
good and bad. On the good side,
sufficient revenue was generated from the
low-end strategy to fund enhancement,
including porting the product to the other
two major UNIX variants. It gave the
fledgling product a chance to survive.
Regrettably, ORBiT management did not
heed our advice concerning Linux, dismissing
the strategy by saying "Nobody will ever
seriously use Linux." Had ORBiT pegged
their long-term strategy on Linux, they
might well have owned the majority of the
Linux backup and recovery market.
Contact Silicon
Strategies Marketing for a telephone
consultation on finding growth market
opportunities. |
