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Bill Joy on Sun's downfall, Microsoft's prospects, green tech (Q&A)

• keltex 16y ago
  "I think if you wound the clock back, I'd like to think that we invented stuff in engineering that could have been marketed better," Unfortunately, this is completely backward. You create products that customers WANT not try to sell customers stuff your engineers invent.
  • there 16y ago
    perhaps the technical people that want the engineering aren't the same ones making the purchasing decisions.
  • DaniFong 16y ago
    Or, you can make something for your own amusement like Steve Wozniak, and spend the next two decades helping the entire planet come around to discovering how useful it is. Minds take time to change.
• 10ren 16y ago
  > We had a touch-screen, Wi-Fi handheld device that we showed in 1995. That was a decade early. By the time it was time to do the iPhone, we didn't have any business anywhere near the handheld devices. Unfortunately, engineering needs customers. Sales. Not just for money, but for reality checks, feedback and encouragement. Bill also talks about "believing in" products, and I think he means for management, and especially marketing, to believe in it (assuming engineering already does). Clayton has this great idea of spinning off these types of products in entirely separate and autonomous business units (aka startups). This is because those little guys can get really excited about $100,000 worth of sales, whereas it's (literally) a rounding error for megacorps. This enables the business unit to get started even with near-zero market. Another facet is that if you have a small number of people, it's more possible to select a subset of people who really do believe in it. also: he's right that Sun had great consumer products - like Java applets - but only in terms of hard engineering, not in terms of usability or the user-experience. Not exactly marketing's fault.