Customer Landscape

Developing and releasing a Version 1.0 product at Microsoft is a near herculean task. Many great minds representing different disciplines with differing perspectives and agendas need to come together and agree that the software code is production-worthy. Comparatively speaking, subsequent versions are much easier to get out the door. After releasing Version 1.0 on June 1, 2001, we hoped our "showcase" customers would welcome the product with open arms......

Alas and alack, the downward spiral in the economy was taking its toll on our "showcase" customers. Slowly but surely, as the fiscal angel of death descended on their houses, one by one they started backing out of their commitments to us. We used this time of uncertainty to refine our product, even enhance it with some new features, and tweak it into the best possible state. We released Version 1.5 at the end of October 2001, thinking surely that would entice our customers to sign on the dotted line. We were all proud of the little plaque to attach to our Ship-it Awards, but the victory still seemed a tad hollow without real paying customers using our product. We continued to refine, enhance, and tweak, adding what we thought were surefire customer pleasers like PVR (personal video recorder, also referred to as DVR, or digital video recorder) features, and VOD (video on demand) features. We all worked smarter and harder and long into the night, hoping against hope that the business development and sales staff would garner design wins and customer satisfaction. Sadly, by the time we released Version 2.0 on April 19, 2002, the writing was on the wall. Not a single shipping, paying, customer had been won. The few customers remaining wanted yet more tweaks before they would consider the product ready, and frankly speaking we were all quite worn down.

To turn things around, a new executive was brought in to lead the future vision. We focused Version 2.0 on the last remaining hopeful customers in Europe and Latin America. We ramped up the staff for a new thin-client product for North America, and soon we were fastly and furiously specifying new features and roadmaps.

Finally, after much customization work, we signed paying customers in Europe for Version 2.0. Soon after that, after a complete overhaul and even more customized engineering development, we signed paying customers in Latin America. At long last, we felt good about what we had accomplished - a real product into paying customers hands. Life was good...... And still fresh development continued on, for the new thin-client product. We had high hopes that would really capture the hearts and minds of a much larger customer base. Customers are, after all, the main reason why products are developed, are they not? At least that's what I'd like to think.....

I learned many lessons during these years. As engineers we often overlook the changing customer landscape, but we do so at our own peril. A great product without a customer base can not really be that great. Even if we create the most intricate, elegant, software solutions and provide compelling products and services, if we don't have the ability to market and sell them to real paying customers, our efforts are for naught. Ultimately, customer satisfaction is at the heart of a success - develop the right product for the right customer at the right cost and at the right time, and you'll have a winner, with many customers coming back for more. Develop a whizbang technology just to show you can, and it may be a minor footnote in the dusty annals of some arcane museum somewhere. "Build it and they will come" only works in the movies. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.....