Comments on: Strategic design risks (1): Wal-Mart’s foolhardy reliance on “partners”

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:07:55 +0000

Excellent article. The other thing I wonder about with this endeavor is that the download movie industry business model, when successful, will be pioneered by early adopters. This has never described the average WalMart customer, who is primarily driven by value for the dollar. In fact, they are the opposite of the early adopter, who spends more money to be on the cutting edge.
The large media providers are currently the ones stifling the advancement of the download movie business, much the way they tried to kill the VCR. Their current success in money making is a result of their failure to kill the VCR. One can only hope they’ll eventually realize that DRM is a similar failed concept, and that they will quit fighting a business model that will make them billions.

By: reinharden

reinharden — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:56:21 +0000

Does anyone think that if the WalMart video store was pulling in cash hand over hand that HP would have “shutdown” the technology? If WalMart had been able to reach customers, the service would have “performed as expected”, HP would have kept providing it, and there’d be no story.

Seems silly for WalMart to point in so many different directions whether than just say “We failed to achieve the mass we anticipated and are therefore moving on”.

reinharden

By: Luis Alejandro Masanti

Luis Alejandro Masanti — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:56:45 +0000

quote:
“When a core component of a product or service depends on the rate of innovation of another party over which you have no control or influence, it’s time to rethink strategy.”

This reminds me of all the times news called Steve Jobs “a control freak”!
Maybe this is [one of] the reasons why Apple grows.