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Is The 6-Month Product Cycle Upon Us?
Mark Goldstein writes "What is perhaps more interesting than the 4 new Konica Minolta cameras announced today is the rapid product cycle that seems to have been established by both Konica Minolta and other manufacturers." Rather than the yearly model updates that people have come to expect, the article notes that three members of this batch aren't even a year old, and one is only six months.
Analyzing the 6-month life cycle from the different points of view...
Consumer - on one hand (as the second link points out), this is great for the consumer, because newer models causes the prices on the older models to drop, and then the consumer can possibly afford "more" camera then they otherwise could...of course, the flip side to this, is that you have to be satisfied with a camera that is "out of date"...
Retail Store - although I'm sure all major electronic stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc, have excellent supply chain management, I still gotta believe they get stuck holding the bag a little when new cameras are announced every six months, and suddenly all of the current cameras they had in stock suddenly become devalued...
Camera Company - obviously this is good for them...we've seen it time and time again, with cell phones being the most recent example...even though a consumer may be happy with their current product, they just have to have the most up-to-date, shiny, feature filled version of whatever it may be (cell phone, camera, pc, etc)...
The bottom line is, I still think it's good for the consumer...look what this same type of accelerated cycle has done for the home PC...parents everywhere can now buy much more PC then they could ever use, very cheaply...yoou just gotta be able to live with not having the best and fastest thing out there (ugh, this might be the wrong forum to propose that idea)...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
I've often wondered why Microsoft and the other main software companies have not abandonded the idea of major product releases. Incremental releases (like those in the OSS world) make a lot more sense, as the product then evolves more organically. There is no real reason why MS couldn't start doing this for it's products. It would be much easier to get people to "subscribe" to products then, which would be good in the long term for Microsoft's revenue stream.
The fashion industry has been dealing with this forever, and I predict similar trends will appear in music (closing fast), and then computers. By the time you buy something that's 'in fashion' at a traditional store, the designers have already released the next season's line. There is absolutely no way to stay 100% current, unless you are a designer yourself, and even then, your wardrobe will always be off by about 3 seasons.
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Honestly, technology does advance fast enough in some fields to support this kind of cycle. It's kind of hard to do it in a more matured area, like automobiles or household appliances, but when the technology behind digital cameras is constantly improving it only makes sense to push it out quickly; before that new technology is made obsolete.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
I can't imagine physical products are much different. Sure, you get a new model every 6 months, but what's really changed? Personally, I'd like to wait a year, and get a substantial benefit. My experience is that shorter cycles are good for the marketing droids (who always have vaporware "almost" ready to release) and bad for the customer and the developer.
Oh, and another funny thing. The same customers who demand quarterly releases also bitch about the fact they have to migrate ever four months. I told them there was a simple solution to that problem... :)
One of the things I have disliked about the computer industry and it's constant improvement is what I have started calling Versionitis. It seems that something 'bigger, badder, and faster' is always around the corner. Due to the cost of some of these items it sure makes some consumers go into a infinite loop waiting for the 'next big thing'.
What fails to get mentioned or noticed by consumers is that digital cameras and mega pixels they support have reached a plateau as to what they are used for to why I need that many MP.
3MP was enough for a 8x10 print, 6MP got you into the 13x19 range. anything higher than that just makes the files bigger and can introduce more compression artifacts as you try and reduce the file size with all the detail presented.
I've got a Canon D60 that I bought in 2002. I've been adding lenses and the like over the last few years but the camera itself is a workhorse and I have no MP reason to replace it. however I'd like a few faster things like shutter speed and whatnot more than how many MP they do.
I've had to reign in my self-control quite a few times on big ticket items. It was about 18 months ago when I decided that getting a new computer once a year was stupid and a waste of money. My Powerbook G4 867Mhz is doing me just fine still. The only thing that'd force an upgrade is manipulating larger MP camera images in Photoshop, so keeping everything in check on upgrades sure helps keep money for other things.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
No, your parent was right.
The most popular car in europe, the VW Golf, is right now in its 5th incarnation, since about a year or so. I bought my own Golf IV in 2000, and it was already 2 years old then (my car, not the general Golf IV model, that was older). It is not a "98' Golf", though, but a "Golf IV", and nobody really cares about the production year, except maybe a local garage, when a certain part changed due to some production reason.
And that is really different from the habit of labeling american cars by their production year and the model name. It just is. No amount of "Puhleaaase!" can change that.
i don't know about you guys, but my old motorola brick was less laggy and had better sound (i know... digital is better) than my brand new siemens.
If you old Motorola brick was analog (AMPS), then that probably explains it. Your digital cellphone compresses a voice stream into a measly 9600 or 14400 bps. Yeah, its great in a car because the codec also gets rid of noise, but I think overall voice quality stinks and relish the days of AMPS with occasional static. Second, your call is dropped if you hit a momentary dead area and lose too many packets to recover. On the otherhand, analog will just drop out (or go static) and usually recover (unless you are dead for more than a second).
The only reason i can find for this is about TCO (total cost of ownership)
My dad had a TV set that lasted 20 years. Yeah 20 years non-stop. 3 years with a computer and it's already trash. Same with cellphones, printers, etc, etc... You spend a lot more to keep those devices working.
My Canon bjc4000 printer is about 8 years old and it's better than most new cheap printers.
Here's my perspective based on far too much time working as a Product Manager:
I strongly prefer development models that are based on incremental releases that ship at regular intervals. Ideally, I prefer systems in which a new version of the product ships one every 4 monthes. Those features/functions that are "ready" get included in a release. Features that aren't ready will be slipped until the next version.
This development process requires MUCH more work to set up. Code needs to be modular enough that features can be added/subtracted from a candidate without destablizing the entire system. Furthermore, there isn't much down time for release engineering. As soon as one release has shipped out the door, the next one is almost ready for testing.
With this said and done: From my perspective, companies that focus on a small number of "Hail Mary" releases produce crappy products. If you only shipping one release every 18 -24 months then EVERYTHING gets shipped with that release, regardless of the quality of the code. Equally significant, your release engineering process inevitably gets very sloppy since the individuals running this never get sufficient practice. Finally, you are inevitably forced to push out large numbers of patches to fix all the crap that contaminated your original version. These patch releases re-introduce most of the same problems that crop up with a "regular" release model, but without the right infrastructure to support this model.
Far better to bite the bullet and design for success from the beginning...
I don't care about somethings changing all the time, others bug me out. My pet peeve is cell phones. The entire cell phone industry should be standardized so that all batteries, chargers, and other items would fit every phone. Heck, I'd like them to one print cartiridge for 1-2 years across all the models. It seems with ink jet printers that they are on a 3 month cycle. (I'd rather just have one decent item that I know is good and buy that one each time.)
I hate having to look up the new model and if all the extras would still fit into the new model. It is very annoying.
I mean that's what seems to be happening with these rapid production cycles; they concentrate so much on improving one aspect that the entire product suffers, or at least starts to suffer, from it.
And let's not forget our favorite one, Microsoft; Although I'm sure this is not the main reason M$ sucks... *Insert M$ bashing here* *and here*
While I agree with the general idea that too rapid production cycles can be bad, Microsoft is hardly a major villain in this case. For each new Windows version, there have been improvements across the board, not just on single areas. Some would argue that this is not true for the Windows 95-98-Me line, which aren't quite as different from one another as the NT-2k-XP line (and 2k-2k3). However, 2-3 years is hardly a "rapid cycle" when talking computer software.
Let's also not forget that Windows Longhorn is still another year away at least, will have MAJOR new features across the board according to the information from Redmond thus far, and it's been some time since XP was released (2k3 doesn't count as a "new" Windows in this context as it's just XP for servers). So regarding OS's, Microsoft are hardly guilty of pushing a "rapid product cycle" in order to squeeze consumers for money (they compensate by charging lots for their software instead - different story which I will not bother with here).
Microsoft Office is, however, a different story. OpenOffice.org has only a subset of Microsoft Office 2003's features, but I don't find myself missing anything. I guess this means nothing of massive substance has been added to Office since '95 or so - but others would digress. There have been huge debates over this before but I think the general consensus is that the new features, however insignificant, must be of value to somebody, so there's no harm in Microsoft releasing new versions of Office every year - after all, there's not much more that can be added to Word or Excel in terms of "major features" (think "major" like the introduction of USB support in Windows 98 here. Now THAT's major!) but some will likely get the new versions anyway for the extra bells 'n whistles. Anyone who doesn't need the new features can just stick to their old versions or get OOo if they hit EOL. Problem solved.
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
The digital camera industry is in a huge boom right now, as "the other 50%" of the population starts their migration towards digital photography.
No one who just bought a digital camera will replace theirs in the next 6 months - a few companies used to offer buy-back and trade-in options when new models came out but not anymore, so you're stuck with dropping $300-$3000
The real reason behind all this constant upgrading is that the manufactures are trying to woo those who are trying to convert to digital photography. The millions of film SLR users who are packing up their dark rooms and looking for a camera that won't break the bank yet still be versatile enough to fit them (this is also why the Nikon D70 and Canon Digital Rebel are selling like hot-cakes laced with cocaine). All the manufacturers have to have a superior product, so they'll come out with a new revision every 6 months so long as they can best the competition and expand their share of the digital-convert market.
I believe the engineering term used at a DoD shop I was at is "Shovelling sh*t" ... if people are stuck taking what you give them, and you get paid no matter what, your "production rate" increases dramatically.
meh
I think the overlying job of technology is to completely overturn old technology, say 'heh, that was easy, wonder what we can steamroller next?'
Currently, Digital photography and portable music players have a bullseye painted on 'em, but the same happened with keyboards, mice, cellphones, PDA's, laser printers, video cards, etc.
There's a period of churn, where the vendors fight for every last scrap, then move on leaving one or two large players and razor-thin margins.
I predict flat screens will be the next big target, what with DLP, LCD, and LCoS technologies falling under the economy of scale.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
While manufacturers may be releasing products on an accelerated schedule, the internal chipsets tend to have longer lives. For example, Canon's DIGIC chips have been used in a variety of consumer digital cams and camcorders - the trick is to create a roadmap of features to roll out over the given lifespan of the chips (say 18 months or two years). I do this in my job, too -- When I design a board, it includes jumpers and additional pads so that future enhancements such as a larger front panel or USB can be cheaply added at build time. This lets us amortize the R&D over a reasonable time, while ensuring a quality core.
...one that NIC makers seem notorious for (in my past experience D-Link was the WORST for this).
It's the practice of releasing a new "revision" of the same model that is essentially a totally different product, which give the perception of a longer product cycle when it has actually been a scant six months for a long time.
For example, why the HELL do they make a product called "D-Link DFE530" for a few months, then drop it and release ANOTHER "D-Link DFE530" with COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CHIPS on it? They are even dumb enough to do things like put them in the same box--the only way to tell them apart is by a little revision sticker they MAY put on the box, or more likely silk-screen onto the board itself.
This type of crap is so infuriating one is tempted to call for it to be outlawed. If a customer's DFE530 breaks and he goes to get another DFE530 you shouldn't have to worry about changing the driver for the "new" DFE530. And if you wonder where some of the bloat in Windows comes from, pick apart some drivers--they are often multiple drivers packed into one, with code to identify which is the proper one for the given "revision". If you're unlucky to have an older driver without code for the new "revision" you have to upgrade it. Not user friendly in the slightest--even if the driver ships on disk with the card.
That is why I vote with my wallet...my experience with D-Link made me stop buying ALL D-link products altogether. All my computers use Intel NICs now. Now that I know that Linksys and Netgear pull the same stunts my personal embargo will now extend to them. Thanks for the heads up.
I've always thought the saddest people in the world are like Paris Hilton. Unlike those of us who can dream that being wealthy, popular, or beautiful would make us happy; they know that they do not and have little left to look forward to.
Sorry, but my heart's not gonna' be bleeding for Paris Hilton when there are people in the US who have to bust their asses every day for minimum wage, and the large majority of humans on the planet would give their left arm to have 1/10th of her looks and money.
And no, I'm not bitter. But frankly, to have all that presitige and wealth and glamour, and your biggest concern is what your nails look like makes you the biggest waste of life on the planet. I'm not going to feel sorry for people like that, I'm going to despise people like that.
I'm better than those people in every way, but I'll bet no one's going to give me my own TV show.
And for the record, being wealthy, popular and beautiful *would* make me happy - because being poor, alone and ugly really, really sucks.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.