November 9, 1998
They should do it my way
By Bob O'Donnell
I don't know about you, but it really bugs me when companies introduce products that
are almost there, but fall just short in one area or another. In fact, I sometimes think
that's even worse than watching a product demo of something you know is going to be a real
dog. I can't tell you how many times I've watched product introductions and thought to
myself, "Well, it's not bad, but if they had only done this, then it would be a great
product."
Of course, as a journalist, part of my job is to critique products I come across --
whether my feedback is solicited or not. But I just think it's human nature to develop
opinions on products you're interested in using or, in some cases, upon which a critical
portion of your business depends. In other words, you don't need any journalistic
credentials to be a product critic.
Let's not forget, however, that it's very easy to be a critic -- much easier,
certainly, than it is to conceptualize, develop, build, and manage the creation of a
computer-related product. In today's increasingly sophisticated and complicated market,
putting together a real winner is an extremely tough task. And in lots of cases, companies
have good reasons for not including something that may seem incredibly obvious to you or
me.
But still, there are many times when I've wanted to pull a product manager aside, whap
him or her upside the head (speaking figuratively, of course), and just say, "Listen,
if you'd just add xyz features, then you'd have a great product."
In the spirit of that "friendly" criticism, here's my take on a few current
and upcoming products that I wish I had been consulted on first.
- The Apple iMac. Sure, it's a great machine, and I'm not even that concerned about the
lack of a floppy. But if you want to make something cutting-edge, don't stop halfway. For
example, why couldn't it have featured a DVD-ROM drive (and associated MPEG-2 hardware),
as well as an IEEE 1394/FireWire port? After all, it was Apple engineers who first created
FireWire. My only consolation is that early reports I've seen on the Web suggest that the
second iteration of the iMac will have most of what I wanted. Too bad we have to wait for
the second one.
- Windows 98. When is Microsoft going to learn that it needs to lock the Windows folder so
that nothing -- and I mean nothing -- can be added to it without some sort of
acknowledgment and agreement by us users (and maybe even not at all)? If the company won't
rid the world of the horrors of DLLs, then the least it can do is keep applications from
writing their own junk into the Windows folder (Microsoft Office included).
- Intel Katmai Pentium II. Even though the product isn't out yet, it's been made clear
that the next step in the evolution of the x86 architecture will keep the Level 2 cache
outside the main CPU, as current Pentium II designs do. The release of the Celeron A
series proves that Intel can quickly add internal L2 cache to a processor design when it
has to, so why not add this generally beneficial development to Pentium IIs instead of
some additional instructions that only a tiny percentage of people will really see any
benefit from? (I know that subsequent Pentium II designs will have onboard L2, but they're
still a way off.)
Of course, there are many more than this, but you get the basic idea -- they're so
close and yet so far, and man, that's annoying.
Now if you are a product manager, I suppose this type of griping may be equally
annoying and frankly, not terribly productive. In fact, some people probably consider it a
cheap shot. But you know what? When you're stuck the mire of today's mediocre products --
as most of us are -- a little gripe session every now and then still feels pretty good.
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Copyright 1998, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a
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