Fidji
Senior Member
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2019
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I don't think it's wise to trust the words of companies. Plus I don't think they actually promised it.
I simply think that they stand to make more money by releasing it than by not releasing it.
Situation: You are company in low margin/mature market [not too many new features available] - your newest product is 2 years old. There is one interesting opportunity to significantly upgrade your product - in our case SW provided by 3rd Party.
Options:
1) give option for upgrade of existing product, which will significantly enhance usability of units out at the customers and prolong their usability. Your revenue stream is basically % of SW license revenue of 3rd Party provider. Your upcoming product will offer only very limited improvement and no real reason to upgrade.
2) introduce “new, better with unique feature” [which you can do at low cost, as you will probably re-use 90% of design of previous generation] let’s call it X900 - and you get flurry of attention, reviews, people talking about night and day improvements. There is significant incentive for X800, X700, X600 owners or even owners from competition to look at your new shiny product. Your revenue stream is - your product AND cut from SW license. Then 1 year later you can introduce FW update to older units and get % of license fees.
Actually 2) is what any sane company would do.