Dominance in the software world (with a coffee metaphor)
Robert Scoble commented on Alex Hoffman's thoughts on "The Missing Future." He writes:
One last thought. My family just went out to dinner. On the way back we passed by our favorite coffee place. Named Victor's. Hey, wait a minute. This is Redmond. Not far from Starbucks' headquarters. In Eric's world, Victor would never be allowed to sell coffee.
Every day Victor reminds me that someone can beat "the dominant corporation" and deliver a better product.
We have recently become inundated with Starbucks, but there are still several local franchises and autonomous unknowns that serve superior coffee. The best coffee is served at these unknowns, and many coffee pundits know this; however, does this mean they have beat "the dominant corporation?" Lets face it, Starbucks is pervasive; the overwhelmingly trendy atmosphere and Starbucksisms ("Can I call bar?" the cashiers say to the "barista" two feet from their position) will, in most cases, elicit enough coffee drinkers to dominate the smaller company that has a superior product. Some argue the same for Microsoft, that they are a better marketing machine than software company. Just for the record, I disagree with these people.
Lets say we have a small company "A" and a large company "B", people won't acknowledge "A" as beating "B" unless the size of "A" > "B." Out-of-sight is out-of-mind. Victor's may serve great coffee, but I've never heard of it, so it looks to me that Starbuck's is winning because I can walk down the street and get a vinti latte. Some of these smaller companies persevere and overcome the best, some are assimilated by the best, and still some are unsuccessful at doing the former and refuse to do the latter.
The coffee metaphor holds true for the software world as well. I see great ISVs with great ideas that founder for their market share is consumed by the promulgator of a lesser product.