Yahoo Tech Ticker: Dell's Dilemma

This cracks me up … Dell surged when Apple lagged and now that Dell is lagging, everyone is talking about how Apple’s innovation is all that matters.

Here’s an idea, the marketplace evolved from Dell to Apple, the companies stayed the same. At first consumers were price sensitive, especially when computers were expensive, Dell was cheaper, so they won. The consumer evolved and price is less of an issue than design, so what do people (in rich countries) look for … innovation in design.

Neither of these companies really ‘got’ the consumer, they just did what they did and were lucky at different times. What’s amazing is that they don’t seem to realize this … innovation, especially on design does not matter to poor consumers, only to richer ones … it’s a consumer maturity issue.

This view that Innovation in design is all that matters it a joke .. its all that matters, once the consumer has reached a certain maturity. Design in business, allowing for cheaply produced computers is all that matters when the consumer is poorer.

Not even Microsoft gets this … Bill Gates talks about how boring business is, and how he loves innovation. It’s sad, because his business innovation (building software that could run on any x86 machine) allowed him to beat Apple.

The sooner people realize that innovation is more than just design, and can actually encompass business models; the better off both companies and consumers will be.