Innvoate or Die - Customers

Get customers directly involved in the innovation process
PowerBuilder has almost entirely lost mind-share. In order to re-introduce to a new generation of developers, Sybase should treat it as if it was a new product. When the product was originally being developed PowerSoft used the product internally and also partnered with clients. That gave them the kind of insight into what new features and improvements in existing features were needed. That same kind of insight is missing today. Eric Von Hippel notes: "Research indicates that the major reason for the commercial failure of manufacturer-developed products is poor understanding of users’ needs by manufacturer-innovators." Kathy Sierra also argues that "[w]ithout really talking to users the best you can hope for is to meet their expectations. You won't be able to craft that extra special magic that makes them passionate if you don't talk (and listen) to them." By partnering with key customers, Sybase can gain better knowledge about how the product is currently being used and where the areas for improvement are at. Eric Von Hippel notes that:

Innovate or Die - Users

Implement innovation that address the needs of “on-the-edge” users
Rather than focus on issues that have a high degree of popularity (requested often), focus on those that your “lead user” indicate are show stoppers for “on-the-edge” development. Those are the issues that the rest of your user base will eventually encounter. Eric Von Hippel notes:

Innovate or Die - Focus

Focus on distinctive innovation
Sybase has (to me) a dizzying array of products, and it seems like every time I turn around they're announcing some new product. Drill down through the the "Products and Solutions" section of their web site and you'll find 23 different products listed under "Information Management". Click on "Development and Integration" and you'll find 15. There's another 13 under the "Mobile and Wireless Applications" section. That's not 50+ products total, there's some duplication across the categories, but it is a lot of products. What it implies to me though, is that Sybase is trying to be "all things to all people" rather than focusing on specific areas in which they can distinguish themselves. Geoffrey Moore notes:

Innovate or Die - Core

Concentrate on the core
Many of the often discussed enhancements are for improvements to PowerBuilder are not related to differentiating PowerBuilder from other products in the same market niche. It is certainly important to overcome deficiencies (e.g., lack of XP style toolbars and menus). However, addition of other “me-too” features such as Next Generation PowerScript are detrimental to the product overall if they are added at the expense of features such as a Rich Text Edit Style or Web Services as a DataWindow data source. What Sybase needs to focus on as it considers enhancements to PowerBuilder is the "core" rather than "context". Geoffrey Moore defines the difference between core and context this way:

You’re Invited to the PowerBuilder 10.5 Launch and Learning Event!

The newest version of the market's favorite 4GL RAD tool, PowerBuilder, is now available! This all-time classic has always enabled developers to quickly and easily build the critical data-driven applications they need. Now, it's even better and souped-up with the features you need to accelerate your application development.

Come see for yourself the power behind PowerBuilder 10.5 in a city near you. Dave Fish, Sybase Technical Evangelist, will show you how easy PowerBuilder 10.5 makes application development and cover the newest features, including:

DataWindow TreeView Presentation Style
DataWindow Autosize Height on all DataWindow Bands
DateTime Picker Control
Rich Text Control
BYTE and 28 Digit Decimal Data Type Support
New Icons and Bitmaps
Enhanced Menu and Toolbar Functionality
Enhanced Web Services Support Updated!
Enhanced support for Database Interfaces

You can find out about PowerBuilder 10.5 and its retuned features in the following cities:

New York City, NY: May 18th
Boston, MA: May 19th
Washington D.C: May 22nd
Minneapolis, MN: May 24th
Chicago, IL: May 25th
San Francisco, CA: May 31st
Los Angeles, CA: June 1st
Dallas, TX: June 2nd

Events begin at 11:30 am and conclude by 3:30 pm. Lunch will be served. By attending, you'll be able to obtain a significant discount off of PowerBuilder 10.5 and also be eligible to win one of the iPod Nanos that we're giving away in each city.

These Launch and Learning events are free, but space is limited and registration is required. Learn more about this exciting event and register today!

ISUG Mobility SIG Conference Call

This month's ISUG (International Sybase User Group) mobility SIG (Special Interest Group) conference call on April 19th at 12:00 Central will look at Smart Client Development for Windows Mobile and CE. Ian Thain will be the guest presenter demonstrating Sybase's award winning RAD 4GL Smart Client Development tool (PocketBuilder) and his well known "Insurance Assessor Application" .

Innovate or Die - Intro

I'm going to be starting a series of posts on the topic of "if you could tell Sybase how to do things differently, what 10 things would you tell them to do". I'll have a different post for each of the 10 different things (or as many as I get to, I'm not sure I'll actually have 10 when I'm done).

To back up those suggestions, I'll be turning to a number of recognized experts in the business field. I'll be using information from their blogs and/or recent books to support my suggestions for a change in method of operations. Those experts are:

• 
  Geoffrey Moore is a co-founder and managing director at TCG Advisors and founder of The Chasm Group. He is the author of Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game (with co-authors Tom Kippola and Paul Johnson), Living on the Fault Line, and most recently Dealing with Darwin.


• 
  Kathy Sierra is the co-creator of the bestselling Head First series (finalist for a Jolt Software Development award in 2003, and named to the Amazon Top Ten Editors Choice Computer Books for 2003 and 2004). She is also the founder of one of the largest community web sites in the world, javaranch.com.


• 
  Eric Von Hippe is a Professor and Head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He specializes in research related to the nature and economics of distributed and open innovation. He is the author of The Sources of Innovation and more recently Democratizing Innovation.