Monday, June 29, 2009

Outsiders...

I came across an article in New York Times today, and it absolutely surprised me. Just last week, I was discussing with a cousin of mine on what is the laptop he should be buying and I told him, "Go HP, else Go Dell else Go anything else, and buy Acer if you are strapped for cash". My statement was not based on market share or any such thing. It was purely based on personal experience using these products in India (bought in the US) and their technical pros and cons and most importantly their support responsiveness. Yet, very quietly Acer has moved up the ranks and is now challenging Dell, the rags to riches american story for the No.2 slot in PC/Lappy sales! Quite commendable, especially in this economy.

I was similarly caught on the wrong foot when I was making another buying suggestion (I do that a lot :-)) on a MP3 player, and I said "Go Ipoo if you want to follow the trend, Go iriver/cowon if you want quality (and feel geeky) or Go Sandisk if you are strapped for cash". Very soon I got to know that Sandisk has grown to be next only to ipod in mp3 player sales across all models of mp3 players! Its a different matter that Sandisk seem to have given up on their mission to be the "ipoo killer", but none the less, this latecomer and ranked outsider had played the market right, more with respect to pricing than with innovation and won (for most part)!

I suppose its these kind of stories that smaller companies and ranked outsiders need to think that they can make it big some day, though thinking and getting there are very very different ball games. :-) BTW, I am thick skinned enough to continue with my "buying suggestion" sessions. ;-)

4 comments:

Anila said...

Good that you talked about this..
There is a lot of buying I have to do this weekend.. Hopefully it will live upto my expectations of the July 4th sale.. I will send a mail with the questions.. :)

Ajay said...

July 4th sale, maybe I should get my list ready too... ;-)

Dragonfly said...

Well, you never know who will come out BIG!

Ajay said...

Yeah, play the game right and anyone can win. Niche player Asus is the dominant force in the netbook game. HPs strategy sucks, lenovo has more or less given up and Dell continues to be a player just because its super cheap with a brand name.