Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe)]

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On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:55:11 -0400, "Marin David Condic"
<dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote:

>Obviously, if a business is getting lots of serious inquiries about a
>product for a particular segment they have good reason to believe that they
>will be able to find customers for it.

Within reason, yes, but...

> OTOH, customers often don't know what
>they need until they see it or they may have a need they don't express to
>one particular company - especially if they are only potential customers
>rather than regular customers. That's the point at which floating a few
>trial baloons or otherwise conducting some market studies & analysis can
>help out a lot. Sometimes there is industry or government research that
>sheds light on a market & suggests where to introduce new products.
>Sometimes you have to do your own surveys & research. In any event, you need
>to look before you leap - something commonly missing in new business
>startups or new product developments. "Know Thy Customer" is a good rule to
>have.

Exactly - the point being that if a [potential] customer is looking
for a product, there is a good chance that they will need to either
use or demonstrate the use of the product at that time, not in 6 or 12
months. So in many cases if a product doesn't exist a customer will go
somewhere where an alternative (possibly inferior) product does exist
and is available.

>> Several people have commented on the virtue of satisfying
>> those who program as "hobbyists" versus those who are
>> working as bona fide professionals doing "real projects."
>> This raises some interesting perspectives on how the software
>> industry develops, evolves, becomes, and achieves.

It is true that ACT are doing avery good job of satisfying many
hobbyists using Ada. My view however is that they could do so *and*
increase their revenue by marketing GNAT Learning Edition or something
like that - i.e. CD, Full Installation instructions etc, and no (or
minimal) support in the way that many of the Linux Distros are
marketed these days. I paid around �50.00 for Mandrake Linux in a box
but the last time I asked sales@gnat.com about an equivalent GNAT
product I was told they didn't do one. They only sell support
contracts based on a minimum number of seats. I would have been quite
happy to pay up to say �50.00 for a boxed copy of GNAT, but it just
wasn't available. If there are others like me then this is a market
that ACT are simply ignoring yet which could provide additional
capital to allow them to provide products at their own risk.