"first-mover (dis)advantage" (was Re: is ada dead?)

["Mark Lundquist" <up.yerz@nospam.com>]

<tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message
news:wKJ47.216277$%i7.123588763@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com...
> >   * In a new technology, where time to market translates into lead
> > time ("first-mover advantage");
>   "First-mover advantage" is more perception than reality.

I'd agree that it's not as big of a deal as is made of it (as you saw from
the rest of my post... :-)

Conventional wisdom in the "New Economy" was that if you had to choose
between aiming and shooting first, it was better to shoot first.  This
mentality might have had something to do with so many companies' inability
to deliver value commensurate with their market valuations :-)

On the side... I read somewhere (so it must be true... :-) that in the Old
West, the gunslingers who survived the longest were not necessarily the ones
who were quickest on the draw, but rather the ones who took the time to aim
their shot :-)

> Lots of
> introducer companies have wilted, while the follower that "does it up
> right" blooms.  Univac-IBM, Visicalc-Lotus, Macintosh-Windows,
> Netscape-Microsoft etc
>   One thing dragging down software first-movers is that they tend all
> too soon to have a buggy, un-maintainable, un-extendable, pile of hacks,
> while the second-mover can see what features the market has asked
> for and can actually design a clean system to supply them.

Not only do they get a better perspective on the market, as you point out...
they also avoid the pressure of the "rush to market" mentality on
development schedules, so that the developers are more likely to produce
something better than an "un-*-able pile of hacks" :-)

-- mark