| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name
 | Date | Lines | 
|---|
| 384.1 | product positioning | SDSVAX::SWEENEY |  | Tue Sep 15 1987 12:59 | 13 | 
|  |     What .0 discusses is pretty much elementary marketing: product
    positioning,
    
    The standard steps in strategic marketing are: Identify opportunities
    (what can we do well, how can we make money), Identify the market
    (who are our customers going to be), Position product (what do we
    design, build, and sell).
    
    The marketing variables: Product, price, promotion, place (ie
    distribution channels)
    
    Things like how is UNIX positioned, or how our workstations are
    positioned have been discussed in ASIMOV::MARKETING.
 | 
| 384.2 | my vote | SAUTER::SAUTER | John Sauter | Wed Sep 16 1987 09:05 | 2 | 
|  |     re: .0--b & c.
        John Sauter
 | 
| 384.3 | Some (hopefully narrowing) holes... | THE780::FARLEE | Dyslexics Untie!! | Wed Sep 16 1987 14:30 | 26 | 
|  |     I'm afraid that I have to disagree.  For the ground that we cover,
    we do it extremely well, but there are large gaps (read opportunities)
    on both ends.  We seem to be addressing the larger end of the spectrum
    but I think that we have significant problems in dealing with the
    small (personal system) end of the market.
    
    Note that in both of your examples:
    
    >1. "Like using a Winnebago to drive to church"
    >2. "Like using a Porche to go to the grocery store"
    
    they both imply overkill.
    
    A Microvax II (III) is a wonderful machine!  I wish I had one under
    my desk! but could I really justify it for a job that could
    realistically be done by a micro at 1/4 the price?  Not likely.
    
    There was a long, detailed discussion on just this topic in the
    Macintosh notesfile (VIKING::$2$DUA9:[WASSER]MACINTOSH , KP7, select,
    etc) topic 943.  I thought that it presented a fairly well reasoned,
    balanced discussion.  However the makeup of the conversation was
    obviously skewed.  I would be very interested in hearing the responses
    of a wider audience.
    
    Kevin
    
 | 
| 384.4 | a car that seats 8, gets 50 MPG, and 0-60 in 9 sec | REGENT::EPSTEIN | Bruce Epstein | Thu Sep 17 1987 09:59 | 15 | 
|  |     Hate to diagree, but "using a Porche to go to the grocery store" is
    *not* overkill; imagine trying to stuff a month's worth of groceries
    into it - it just won't do a job it's not designed for.  What the
    analogy is driving at (no pun intended) is that perhaps we have
    neglected the needs of an 'average' user who needs an inexpensive,
    reliable workhorse rather than a high performance specialized product.
    Or maybe, what the customer wants is an inexpensive, reliable, high
    performance product which can also do the everyday tasks without
    sacrificing anything (sort of like a $10K Porche station wagon).
    However, trying to fulfill this need may be as difficult as it would be
    to actually produce a Porche wagon...  By the way, the particular
    product which this analogy applies to is NOT a workstation (in fact,
    it's not a general purpose computer at all).
    
    Bruce 
 | 
| 384.5 | A disclaimer :-) | REGENT::EPSTEIN | Bruce Epstein | Thu Sep 17 1987 11:05 | 3 | 
|  |     Before I get into any (more) trouble, let me state that I have
    never owned a Porsche (which I have now learned how to spell ;-),
    a Winnebago, or a station wagon. 
 |