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Originally Posted by oggelbe2007
Beta actually DID have better video quality compared to VHS and the tape transport system was a much better design and easier to repair but lost out due to ALL the other points you mentioned. I doubt that Beta could have withstood the VHS design even without the proprietary mindset of Sony. The VHS format was the next logical step in video recording. Ironically the Beta format was used in High End Video Recording long after the VHS format disappeared from the marketplace.  |
Exactly; Beta had a more impressive specsheet... to techies. The core technology might've been better but the consumer *product* wasn't.
To the people that voted with their wallets it *wasn't* a better system because they had to live with the entire ecosystem, not just the specsheet.
The same thing is ongoing with Kindle vs the ADE horde.
Both camps have good products on paper and reasonable, well-informed people can and will buy and be happy with either. But Kindle outsells the entire ADE horde by a mile or two because it is cheaper *and* it doesn't need a PC. That is a very compelling argument for a lot of people, even computer literate ones.
Different people have different needs and different value judgements which is a generally good thing when it comes to market dynamics. Product variety and vendor competition is good for everybody. But it requires vendors to understand their product and their competitors' and what about them is driving sales. And right now, as the ebook reader industry is still very young, there are a quite a few vendors who don't really understand what sells the gadgets. Amazon, however, is not one of them; they understand what sells the Kindle and have shown no interest in changing their approach until the market tells them they have to change. So far, that isn't happening.
This subject announcement is them reminding their customers, might-be customers, and critics that they are doing just fine. It might be helpful to take note of this and consider that their sales numbers are telling us something meaningful about what the market does and doesn't value and not just dismiss it as the result of uninformed or misguided buyers.
As the saying goes; "If you keep on doing what you always did, you'll keep on getting what you've always got."
Amazon outselling the field is a reality.
The real question isn't by how much but rather what, if anything, competitors are going to do about it.