Bing & Pre - Outrunning the Crowd Instead of the Bear
One of my favorite business rules comes from an old scouting lesson: A bear jumps out of the woods and begins chasing the campers. Everyone runs in fear. A boy shouts to one of the girls, "I'll never be able to outrun that bear." "Don't worry," she replies as she passes him, "You just have to outrun someone else."
Smart businesses know that to succeed they need to outrun at least some of the competition, but they do not necessarily need to outrun all of it. We see a reminder of this in the recent launch of both Microsoft's Bing.com search engine and Palm's new smartphone, the Pre. In both cases, analysts have focused on the new products ability to topple the industry leaders - Google and Apple, respectively. But this is the wrong question.
Google has a dominant lead, overwhelming name recognition, and an advertising business model that makes search its only real market. Apple has redefined the music player business and built the iPhone into a hot gaming device and programming platform that can almost do everything. (But "almost" suggests not quite.) Neither will disappear with the launch of new competition.
But in less than a week, Bing has moved to surpass Yahoo in search, giving Microsoft a healthy market share and a chance to compete with Google. The Palm Pre has caught the attention of a loyal Palm following, a large swatch of IT departments unwilling to go down the ultra-proprietary Apple path, and even Verizon which intimates it will have its own Pre device in coming months. For individual buyers, the Sprint-Pre package has been reported the best value of smartphone now on the market.
So sure, Google and Apple will retain their place atop the leader boards. But the twin assault on Google may make it refocus on its core business instead of investing in Android.
For Yahoo, Google's Android division (and perhaps even Blackberry), the bear may just be getting a bit closer.
And with the slate of new and different devices coming out of Computex, the Tiawan computer show, the race from the bear (economy- that is) may be more confusing than ever.
Smart businesses know that to succeed they need to outrun at least some of the competition, but they do not necessarily need to outrun all of it. We see a reminder of this in the recent launch of both Microsoft's Bing.com search engine and Palm's new smartphone, the Pre. In both cases, analysts have focused on the new products ability to topple the industry leaders - Google and Apple, respectively. But this is the wrong question.
Google has a dominant lead, overwhelming name recognition, and an advertising business model that makes search its only real market. Apple has redefined the music player business and built the iPhone into a hot gaming device and programming platform that can almost do everything. (But "almost" suggests not quite.) Neither will disappear with the launch of new competition.But in less than a week, Bing has moved to surpass Yahoo in search, giving Microsoft a healthy market share and a chance to compete with Google. The Palm Pre has caught the attention of a loyal Palm following, a large swatch of IT departments unwilling to go down the ultra-proprietary Apple path, and even Verizon which intimates it will have its own Pre device in coming months. For individual buyers, the Sprint-Pre package has been reported the best value of smartphone now on the market.
So sure, Google and Apple will retain their place atop the leader boards. But the twin assault on Google may make it refocus on its core business instead of investing in Android.
For Yahoo, Google's Android division (and perhaps even Blackberry), the bear may just be getting a bit closer.
And with the slate of new and different devices coming out of Computex, the Tiawan computer show, the race from the bear (economy- that is) may be more confusing than ever.
