By Michael Eckhardt on 7/31/2012 10:43 AM

Groupon (GRPN) has certainly been in the news of late. Much of it not too good.

Bloomberg Businessweek's recent article (7/12/12) was entitled "The Education of Groupon CEO Andrew Mason," and investors and analysts will likely have some rather serious concerns after reading it. But I am not going to comment on the well-known challenges the Chicago-based "Deal-of-the-Day" company is currently facing, such as:

• Groupon stock hitting an all-time low of $7.72 last week, after debuting at $20 in its IPO in November 2011 and rocketing up by 31% more that same day
• Groupon web traffic declining 15% in June 2012 from a year earlier
• Read More »
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  Michael Eckhardt, Managing Director, Chasm Institute LLC

By Michael Eckhardt on 7/12/2012 11:13 AM

It's easy to be tough on large corporations - frequent criticism is heaped on by investors, by analysts, even by employees.

Given the complex organizations, large array of products, risk of bureaucracy + slow decision making, etc., big tech companies certainly have their challenges in governance. Think of the well-known story of the frog in a warm pot of water, then warmer, then hot, then ... you get the idea.

• But IBM (IBM), despite being on its death bed in the early 90s, has managed to win despite the problems inherent in being a tech behemoth.
• CNN and many other media have (happily) recently re-discovered IBM as a global champion. And this, after many news stories had written off the company as a dinosaur.

... Read More »

By Michael Eckhardt on 6/22/2012 11:35 AM

It appears Facebook does indeed have iPhone envy, and this is not a good thing. 

A recent article in PCWorld (5/28/12) was entitled "Experts Question the Need for a Facebook Smartphone," a sentiment which has also been echoed in numerous other publications in the past month (NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, etc.).

From our Chasm Institute experience here in Silicon Valley over the past 15+ years, let's summarize the pros and cons to this debate:

2 Pro Arguments

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Michael Eckhardt, Managing Director, Chasm Institute LLC

By Mark Cavender on 8/25/2011 11:34 PM

Much has been written in the last two days about the legacy of Steve Jobs. And I must say that I agree with most all that's been said. But I have one thing to add.

Steve knew what it meant to create a "whole product." First, a quick definition: the whole product is "everything required to assure that the target customers can fufill their compelling reason to buy," (Geoffrey Moore, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Technology Products to Mainstream Customers).

When I bought my first digital music player (a RioRiot), I had to complete the "whole product" on my own. I had to first buy the CDs, then burn them (by the way, which format do I burn them in...MP3, WMF) and what music quality should I choose (lostless, etc. ... Read More »

By Brett Bonthron on 4/30/2011 3:15 PM

Inspired by a recent Wired magazine article entitled "VP of Gaga" I started to think about what I call the "Power of Cool." By power, in this context, I mean real economic power. That sort of power exists primarily in the consumer world, particularly in consumer electronics. Have you picked up any Apple product (even a 27" iMac, which is hard to pick up) in the last 5 years and not thought "cool"? Of course you haven't. Have you seen, let alone tried on, let alone listened to a set of Monster's Beats headphones and not thought "cool"? Of course you haven't. None of us have. So we know "cool" when we see it and we like it.

"Cool" has real economic power to be sure. "Cool" drives higher margins and accelerates product ... Read More »

By Mark Cavender on 7/19/2010 3:13 AM

I try to be serious in most of my blogs, but tonight is going to be an exception. One of my favorite pasttimes is noticing inconsistencies in everyday life. So, I was watching a show on TV tonight, and the reporter made the following comment: "...much of it was caught on tape by a cell phone camera..."

Why do I find this entertaining? First, as my friends in Europe told me long ago, it's no longer cell phones, it's mobile phones. Cell phones died way back when. But more importantly, have you ever seen a mobile phone with a tape recorder built-in? What's the smallest tape? Micro DV? Probably so. Do any of you find this as amusing as I do? TV reporters are not as savvy as they may think they are :)

Note to Tucker Carlson: please don't take this personally :)

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By Mark Cavender on 6/4/2010 12:03 AM

Yesterday I responded to a blog about the Technology Adoption Life Cycle. In it, Mike Stokes posits that there is no longer a "Chasm" between Early Adopters and Pragmatists, but instead the "Chasm" exists between Pragmatists and Conservatives.

I completely understand how Mike (and many others for that matter) could reach that conclusion. After all, this is a time where consumers are adopting technology en masse. But rather than saying that more and more consumers are to the left of the Chasm, I posit that lots of technologies introduced into the market today are introduced not in the Early Market, but instead as whole products into the Mainstream Market of pragmatists. Hence, there is no Chasm to cross. Want to read the blog plus my response? It's her ... Read More »

By Mark Cavender on 5/19/2010 11:41 PM

Tonight I attended the 12th Annual Top 10 Tech Trends program of the Churchill Club in San Jose. Five Silicon Valley luminaries gave their predictions of what's going to be hot in the next 12 months. Potential winners included product categories such as social networking, health care, new life forms and connected devices plus more general ideas such as the best time to start a company and long-term accountability, The audience was given the opportunity to cast their vote on each, courtesy of a real-time voting device provided by iml Connector (www.imlworldwide.com/beyondvoting). The event can be viewed here (registration required) http://fora.tv/confe ... Read More »

By Michael Eckhardt on 5/15/2010 10:51 PM

There were multiple reasons for HP (HPQ) acquiring struggling smart phone pioneer Palm (PALM) for $1.2 billion a few weeks ago, including mobile computing, the WebOS, and core technology.

One of these reasons was to reinvigorate HP's (HPQ) mobile phone / smart phone offering. It's clear that Apple's (AAPL) iPhone, RIM's (RIMM) Blackberry, and Google's (GOOG) Droid are three of the current winners . . .

• in today's smart phone Tornado market for "business customers throughout the US / Western Europe"
• with "Tornado" being defined by us at Chasm Institute as a market that's growing at 45% or more (annulized, in units)

The good news is that this Tornado is currently raging - an ... Read More »

By Mark Cavender on 5/12/2010 11:53 PM

Today SAP announced the acquisition of Sybase for $5.8B US.

I remember in the 1980s. I was working for a company called McComack & Dodge. We provided financial applications including general ledger, accounts payable, purchasing, and fixed assets. Each of these applications were often sold stand-alone, and companies would buy best-of-breed from either McCormack & Dodge, Management Science America, or Data Design. As the market matured, McCormack & Dodge bought a human resource application, and we began selling "financial"  systems or "human resource" systems.

Then the market moved to  applications based on a relational database management system (RDBMS). Companies bought Oracle's RDBMS along with their financial ... Read More »