

Apple’s enterprise strategy the same as it ever was - raganwald
http://www.macworld.com/article/136762/2008/11/apple_enterprise.html?lsrc=rss_main
via John Gruber. The insightful quote:<p><i>To be an enterprise company is, in a very real way, to cede a great deal of control over your product line to your customers... Here’s the simple truth: Enterprise hates surprises. It’s not what they want. Enterprise wants predictability. They want to know when, what, how much, and that it will be all new and cool, yet change nothing... And they want to know everything in detail a year ahead of time.</i>
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raganwald
via John Gruber. The insightful quote:

 _To be an enterprise company is, in a very real way, to cede a great deal of
control over your product line to your customers... Here’s the simple truth:
Enterprise hates surprises. It’s not what they want. Enterprise wants
predictability. They want to know when, what, how much, and that it will be
all new and cool, yet change nothing... And they want to know everything in
detail a year ahead of time._

I have found this to be very true. To sell to "Enterprise" is to put your
customers in control of your product in almost every way. They dictate your
schedule, your features, your pricing, everything. And they don't have your
success or competitive advantage foremost in their mind. Nor, unfortunately,
do they have _their_ success or competitive advantage foremost in their mind.

Take the predictability thing. Is that to their advantage? Seemingly, but
given the choice between having vendors that surprise me with revolutionary
things that change my business for the better or vendors that make the same
old things in a predictable way, I would prefer a surprise.

But I'm thinking like an owner. The people who buy enterprise software are
managers, and their personal success is driven by showing that they can
_manage_ , which is measured by predictability. That's the very definition of
management in an enterprise: hitting your numbers consistently is worth more
than being all over the map but having better numbers than the next guy.

