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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.
This is why I hate cell phones.
I just want a phone, I don't want to pay for new features I don't need in a new phone in 6 months after my current phone falls apart because they made a piece of crap.
The problem is that shorter release cycles are not necessarily better for the consumers. For the average consumer, it's hard enough to choose a brand amongst the myriad models out there. Then the buyer can look forward to having their model devalued with a new upgrade.
The manufacturers, will also lose out as they end up haemmoraging their own profits by reducing the return on research investments as well as losing the opportunity to build up a brand like Apple did with their iPod.
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then they otherwise could...of course, the flip side to this, is that you have to be satisfied with a camera that is "out of date"...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
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.
Which is why I haven't bought one for about 5 years.
Personally I want my purchases to *last*, I don't care if a "better" product is available the fact remains that when I bought something it did what I expected and required it to do and a year later it should still do it, hopefully for much longer.
I really dislike the way the entire technology arena is going, I am only 19 and already I see far too much "progress" for comfort. I look at my dad who has been able to keep the same job for 19 years and I know that I simply won't be able to do that.
But in all this change, I think we should all remember Ecclesiastes 7:10:
Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions.
People longed for the past 5000odd years ago and they still do it today, humans all share an odd similarity.
I sorta strayed a bit there...Aw well.
This is yet another method in a long string of concocted schemes to stimulate artificial demand. Do we need a new car every year? Of course not but if we tweak the headlight to point in a different direction we can pawn it off as something new and improved and play to the elementary school insecurities of the American consumer and the need to have to have the latest fashion trend so as to be ahead of the Jones'. Look at the durable goods industry, appliances used to have a generic shape and would last consumers decades, now they are purposely designed with color patterns and quickly dating exterior body kit panels so that they can be disposable products in a couple of years when they break down or become rapidly dating fashion faux pas displaced by the next color change and bodykit panels.
I think Ecclesiastes probably has a lot of good advice for modern folk, after all the guy writing it was desparate after gaining everything the world had to offer (wealth, women, wisdom, power) and none of them made him happy after a short honeymoon period. I'd guess that many Americans are getting to that point or will be there in a few years. 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.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.