4 ms·

I think the author still has a lot of work to do to defend his case. BMW doesn't hesitate to make concept cars (see, e.g., http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1

by gcv 18y ago

I think the author still has a lot of work to do to defend his case. BMW doesn't hesitate to make concept cars (see, e.g., http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1890/69/ http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1890/69/), but it has brisk sales and an enviable brand cachet. It's tempting to find some one variable which differs between successful companies and unsuccessful ones, and then spin it, but I think that, in reality, no one variable explains things so neatly.

mechanical_fish 18y ago
It's not about successful vs unsuccessful -- obviously nobody can argue that Microsoft is unsuccessful. It's about innovative and non-innovative. Relative to Apple, BMW is a terrible example of an innovative company, nor do they need to be innovative to succeed: The automotive industry hasn't seen a dramatically different product design, comparable to the difference between an iPhone and a flip phone, since well before World War II [1]. Progress in automobiles has been all about slow, gradual evolution for fifty or sixty years. Even the new hybrid cars are incredibly conventional (they're designed to be nigh-indistinguishable from other cars) and are based on incremental improvements to technologies that are decades old (electric cars, for example, date back to the mid-to-late 1800s). The most interesting recent BMW product (that I know of, anyway) has been the Mini Cooper, a vehicle whose major selling point is that it closely resembles a famous design from 1959. The equivalent Apple product would be the "iENIAC". [1] That is, there hasn't been a dramatically different design that went anywhere. Even if you discount all the wacky concept cars that can't actually be manufactured, plenty of folks have tried to change the industry with real products: the Segway, the Corbin Sparrow, etc, etc.
- akd 18y ago
  Mercedes Benz SLK revived the concept of the hardtop convertible, and now almost every convertible make is shifting to a hardtop. The difference between a hardtop convertible and a soft top is basically the difference between a iPhone and a Nokia N95 (comparison to a regular phone is a strawman).
- eru 18y ago
  I would buy an iVax.
iigs 18y ago
BMW's brand tells a very clear story: "We sell performance sedans and four seat coupes. You can denormalize for comfort or price to a limited extent." Even their convertibles 2 seaters (the old Z3 which was fairly slow) and their SUVs (X5, particularly) are as or more sporty than their competitors. I believe that attempting to define your brand through your concept products implies impending death by mediocrity, but releasing concepts consistent with your brand are probably net neutral, maybe of minor benefit if you're midway between two home run product releases. Releasing the concept technology as a product is ultimately what moves brands, in my opinion.

by gcv 18y ago

mechanical_fish 18y ago

It's not about successful vs unsuccessful -- obviously nobody can argue that Microsoft is unsuccessful. It's about innovative and non-innovative. Relative to Apple, BMW is a terrible example of an innovative company, nor do they need to be innovative to succeed: The automotive industry hasn't seen a dramatically different product design, comparable to the difference between an iPhone and a flip phone, since well before World War II [1]. Progress in automobiles has been all about slow, gradual evolution for fifty or sixty years. Even the new hybrid cars are incredibly conventional (they're designed to be nigh-indistinguishable from other cars) and are based on incremental improvements to technologies that are decades old (electric cars, for example, date back to the mid-to-late 1800s). The most interesting recent BMW product (that I know of, anyway) has been the Mini Cooper, a vehicle whose major selling point is that it closely resembles a famous design from 1959. The equivalent Apple product would be the "iENIAC". [1] That is, there hasn't been a dramatically different design that went anywhere. Even if you discount all the wacky concept cars that can't actually be manufactured, plenty of folks have tried to change the industry with real products: the Segway, the Corbin Sparrow, etc, etc.

akd 18y ago
Mercedes Benz SLK revived the concept of the hardtop convertible, and now almost every convertible make is shifting to a hardtop. The difference between a hardtop convertible and a soft top is basically the difference between a iPhone and a Nokia N95 (comparison to a regular phone is a strawman).
eru 18y ago
I would buy an iVax.

iigs 18y ago

BMW's brand tells a very clear story: "We sell performance sedans and four seat coupes. You can denormalize for comfort or price to a limited extent." Even their convertibles 2 seaters (the old Z3 which was fairly slow) and their SUVs (X5, particularly) are as or more sporty than their competitors. I believe that attempting to define your brand through your concept products implies impending death by mediocrity, but releasing concepts consistent with your brand are probably net neutral, maybe of minor benefit if you're midway between two home run product releases. Releasing the concept technology as a product is ultimately what moves brands, in my opinion.