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Which companies would you give as examples of "eat your way up the value chain"?
by alayne 14y ago
Which companies would you give as examples of "eat your way up the value chain"?
- cageface 14y agoThe PC industry devouring the server and workstation market is the most salient example.
- dredmorbius 14y agoMicrosoft (against IBM, DEC, Novell, SCO (the original, Microsoft's own spawn). Sun, against IBM and AT&T. Red Hat, against Sun. Salesforce against bespoke business solutions. Google Apps against Microsoft Office. Gmail against MS Exchange. More generally, read/refer to Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma.
- pantaloons 14y agoWhat makes you include GMail in that list? It has, by all measures, failed to move up the value chain, its revenue is completely eclipsed by that of Exchange. (Disclaimer: I work at MS.)
- dredmorbius 14y agoMy question in response would be: what accounts has Microsoft lost to Gmail in the past couple of years? From my connections, I'm aware that much of the startup world is on some mix of Gmail for Domains, Google Apps, and/or Mac for desktops/laptops. Microsoft really doesn't play. Granted, those are small accounts, but I've also seen some household name established businesses ditch Exchange for Gmail. And in a world for which changing enterprise platforms almost universally elicits dread, the announcements were met with cheers. Really loud cheers. And to answer in part: again, read Christensen. It's not that the cheap competition generates more revenue (though in some cases it does). By that metric you're making the same strategic error as recoiledsnake. It's that by growing marketshare, disruptive innovations suck the revnue out of the market. It's what Red Hat did to Sun. It's what Craigslist did to classified advertising. It's what Gmail's doing to Exchange.