SDRNewsHL SDR2009-01-26 Detroit, Vista and Customers

Listening to Customers It occurs to me that Microsoft and the Detroit car companies have some degree of similarity, with both giants suffering through some down times because they listened to customers. One got slapped down just a little bit faster, and the other will have a longer road to recovery. Detroit enjoyed a good fifteen year run - cresting in the early 2000's-  producing SUV's. They were listening to customers who were voting with their pocketbooks, in spite of the CAFE driven sedan products. In fact, at least one of the Big 3 privately said that their strategic intent was to get out of the car business, and concentrate on building products that were both desired by customers and were highly profitable. In order to keep the marketing machine moving - and with the assumption of continued low gas prices, vehicles like the Hemi-powered SUV were pulled back from the grave. Those customers were served up by a dealer network, parts suppliers and other stakeholders. They all had a part of the SUV business. At the same time that auto makers were listening to their customers, Microsoft was doing the same: Listening to their customers. Getting trounced on security loopholes and the media production capabilities by Apple, the game plan was to  make Vista the "Most Secure OS ever". In order to get the type of content that Apple had negotiated with the studios, Microsoft sought out the content protection / DRM armoring that the studios and producers demanded. In order to keep suppliers firmly in the Windows camp, Vista was engineered to pull through ever increasing levels of memory and processing hardware upgrades. XP was ready for the trash-heap. Those customers were served up by a dealer network, integrators, suppliers and other stakeholders - particularly in enterprise accounts. They all had a part of the PC refresh business. Both camps have had a slapdown. I guess you have to listen to a wide spectrum of customers - not just the ones that you like to listen to.