A version of this article appeared previously in Fortune.
If you pay attention to Apple, Apple has begun to send its Apple Vision Pro, its version of a headset that combines virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). The product is an incredible Technical Tour of Force.
But the product/market adjustment of this first iteration is a swing and a failure.
I have seen other world class consumer products companies make the same mistakes:
- Present an incredible hardware that creates completely new abilities
- Demand forecast based on volumes of its previous consumption products
- Confuse consumers defining a new category without a reference framework
- Discover that hardware does not match your existing consumer customer needs needs
- Work hard (read a lot of money) to try to “push” sales to your existing customers
- Income is unfortunately below the forecast. Marketing and capital expenses (new factory, high R&D expenses) were based on consumer scale sales. The new product is burning a ton of cash
- Ignore/not understand the niche of the adjacent markets that would have “drawn” the product of their hands, if they had developed specific demonstrations and disseminations of niche
- Possible pivot to the niche of markets that are excited about the product
- Market niche are excellent beach head markets, but they are too small to coincide with inflated forecasts and built -in burn rates of consumer sales sales
- Any …
- After multiple pivots and changes in leadership, leave the product
- Pivot and persecute
Déjà vu again
I lived the equivalent of this when Kodak (remember?) He launched a product in 1990 called Photocd. Kodak wanted consumers to put their movie Photos at your Cdrom Drom house and then show them on your televisions. He left his film in a film processor and insert or simply received physical impressions of his images, scanned the movie and burn them on a compact album. You would go home with a compact album with your photos.
I obtained a PHotocd preview when I was Supermac Marketing Chief, a hardware and software provider for graphics professionals. The moment I saw the product, I knew that each of my customs graphics customs (advertisement agencies, freelancers, photo studies, etc.) would do it because to use it. In fact, they would have paid a premium for it. They attacked me when Kodak told me they were throwing photocd like a consumer product.
The problem was that in 1990 consumers had no CDROM impulses To show the images. At that time, only most personal computers lacked them. But each graphic professional had a CDROM unit, but most did not have a high -resolution and photocd films scanner would have a perfect bone for them, and the perfect launch customer. To this day, I remember being conferences by a Kodak senior executive, “Steve, you do not understand, we are experts in selling consumers. We will also sell the CDROM units.” (Kodak CDROM units were the size of professional audio equipment and, according to the model, which cost $ 600- $ 1000 in dollars today).
(And when the consumer CDR units became available, Fotocd discs could not play, since they were encoded in a patented Kodak standard to enclose it in their units!) The result was that Photocd failed miserally as a consumption product. The pivots after the users of professional graphics (a segment, another part of Kodak knew well) arrived too late, since low -cost scanners prevailed and non -owners (JPEG).
So what is the lesson for Apple?
- Apple is trying to push Vision pro in its existing Consumer customers
- All existing demonstrations and applications are oriented to their consumption customers
- Apple did not create demonstrations on how the vision pro could be used in New markets Where users would continue to buy a vision for example,
- There is demand proof (here, here and here) or an adjacent mass market, helping millions of house owners to repair things in the house.
- There is demand proof in industrial applications outside the consumer space (here). Each company that has skillfully complex machinery has been experiencing with AR for years. Imagine the repair of the car with a vision tutorial pro. O Reaction engine maintenance. Or all complex range or machinery.
All of these would have vision pro demonstrations of Bone Great Vision for training and repair. It is difficult to understand why Apple ignored these easy victories.
Doing it well
Apple’s entry into the new markets creating new categories of products-Pods, iPads, iPhones, is not precedents in the history of the modern corporation: $ 300 billion (75% of its income) is unused hardware. In addition, they have created a completely new subscription business model of $ 85 billion; The app store, iTunes, Apple Care, Apple Pay, Apple Cash, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple TV.
It is difficult to remember, but the first version of these products was launched with serious limitations that follow -up versions remedied. The first version of the iPhone only executed the Apple software, was a closed system without an application store, had no copy or stuck, could not record video, etc. The original Apple Watch was positioned as a fashion accessory. It was not later that Apple realized that the murderous applications for the clock were fitness and health. Fixing technical defects when finding the right markets for all these products took time and commitment.
The same will probably be true for Vision Pro. Apple marketing specialists will realize that the adjacent spaces with which they are less familiar will provide the first beach head markets “to have to have it.” The Dambo versions will mount the technological wave of lighter and more cheaper versions.
Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, has made a personal commitment in Vision Pro. More than any other company, they have sufficient resources (available effective and engineering talent) to turn their path to the adjustment of the product/market in the real markets that need it.
We hope you find it.
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