“Too much, too soon and too expensive” less likely to work in Tech !

I just spent some time reading an article with an interview with John Sculley, who once was the CEO of Apple, and I have to say I was impressed. His insights into Apple were enlightening and I felt so surprised to see someone which such common sense.

You can read the interview here:  

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/john_sculley_the_full_transcript_part1/

It was the underlying lessons I gained from his insights that I felt were the most valuable. From small to large, tech companies, even small independent developers like myself, can benefit from the key lessons here. Now maybe I read it differently, but this is what I gained from this:

“Too much, too soon and too expensive” is less likely to work !

The reason this strikes me is quite simple. You see, as a programmer I tend to have different views than most of my peers in the industry. Maybe it dates back to when I use to write custom software for local businesses. Maybe its stems from my personal and religious views where you consider other people as important and the golden rule of  “do unto others what you want them to do to do”. What this means is that the bottom line with technology is not what it can do, but who ends up using it, what it costs them to use it and what benefit it has to them. I always felt I had a responsibility to my customers to provide them with the best service I could possibly provide, but also at a price that was affordable to them. If I could find a way to help my customer save money I did it. I looked at technology from the “cost versus benefits” viewpoint. The investment my customer ultimately make had to be acceptable, reasonable and beneficial. If I could find a way to make their computer hardware last longer and still do the job, I would do it. If I could get the most out of less expensive computer hardware I would do it. Yet I concentrated on making the experience (using software) as positive and useful as possible.

Obviously there is something too this, since there are local businesses still using DOS applications I wrote in the early 90’s. Remember the old saying, “if it isn’t broken why fix it”.

I get ribbed a good bit today from my peers (other programmers) because I develop software and tools which can be used even on legacy computers (from Window 95 and up) so end users don’t have to have the “bleeding” edge in computer hardware. My good old Windows XP computer, which is not at least 8 years old (but with a few upgrades like video card, more memory , a DVD drive and second harddrive) still works great and does the job. Its funny when I downloaded and tried another programmers demo applications (graphic oriented) and when the software did not run as expected, he simply said my computer was basically obsolete (too old) to run it. One of the problems I see in software development today is that everyone is always trying to push the bleeding edge, before its time. Sure there may be times when it will be useful, but for the average person, price and even backward compatibility makes sense.

While I am not saying that the ex CEO John Sculley views things exactly like I do, his insights into the failures of Apple (and Next inc) do tend to support some of the lessons I discuss here. Bottom line, price will always matter. The experience of a user of technology is also in relation to the expense they pay for that experience. For example, I lived with dialup internet as long as I could until the price for broadband was low enough for me to afford. Broadband is great, but not at too expensive a price. Once again price matters.

Please read the linked interview with an open mind. Maybe you will glean something totally different than me, but non-the-less it is worth the read.