In the late 1990s,
when the Internet exploded there were many free services and products offered
(remember webvan offering free delivery for groceries?). It is 15 years in
right now. We are back to the brave world of free. Everyday 1000s of folks
offer free products or services online. Just today I learnt that Microsoft OneNote will be available for free.
Last weekend I was able to get a source repository up and running on
bitbucket.org. It is incredible to see so much value in software + services
being offered up for free. How in the world are folks going to sustain this
model?
Yesterday we had a
quick conversation in our hallway about how the twitter phenom had reshaped
customer engagement. We observed that some businesses use high end software to
receive tweets about their brands and products, filter them, and respond to
customer questions. Companies invest in this effort because there is a belief
and strong correlation of such engagement leading to satisfied customers who
become loyal advocates and who eventually consumer more of the consumer
products. And it is likely that a small % of customers eventually end up paying
some sizable amounts of money that keeps running the business of producing new
value. It takes guts, cash cushion, and sustained efforts to ensure we win in
this game.
Back to the OneNote
offer, two interesting things are happening. 1) OneNote opens up APIs for
others to build applications atop the software/system. This will create
information attach to OneNote and enable more storage to be consumed.
Harvesting the information to offer value to customers can drive positive
customer engagement. Storage sale can help with revenue as well. 2) OneNote
broadens the reach amongst all audiences on all platforms establishing a strong
onramp for customers to learn about Office and Microsoft products. This is
beneficial for Microsoft (to produce more value for users) and to users (they
get more value).
Time will tell. For
now, I will eagerly use OneNote :)
No comments:
Post a Comment