Months ago, a friend of mine was buying a smart phone for the first time. When he polled people about what to buy, it seemed that they had stayed with the products they’d first bought.
I’ve been no exception. Having started with a Blackberry, I was so anxious to get the Pearl that I moved from Verizon to Cingular to get it faster.
It appears to take a significant disappointment in your current product or a major breakthrough in a competitive one to inspire change.
I had access to my first PC at 18. I’ve worked on a PC ever since. Next month I’m getting a MacBook and I don’t expect to look back.
Vista was my significant disappointment.
Although I love my
Pearl, I expect that I will soon be the proud owner of an iPhone.
I have an iPod Touch and I love it. As soon as I can rationalize the purchase of an iPhone, bye, bye, Blackberry.
My Blackberry has never disappointed me. It’s just getting out maneuvered.
What’s interesting is that switching products is becoming easier for me:
PC to Mac = 25 years
Verizon to Cingular = 10 years
Pearl to iPhone = 1 year (estimated)
Product developers should be worried.
Hi Phil!
Two things hit me from your comment:
1) "they thought we were trapped" - Funny how that doesn't really happen much anymore.
2) While people are finding it easier and easier to change (evolve or replace) products, many companies aren't.
Hmmmm....this sounds like another post (or two) - stay tuned.
Ann
Posted by: ann michael | September 30, 2007 at 09:08 AM
Wow Ann, that's quite a curve there, or should I say CLIFF.
You know, Internet service providers noticed the same thing. At first, they thought we would never change our e-mail address, so they thought we were trapped. Then Hotmail and Yahoo started giving away e-mail addresses. Only 3 MBs, but it was free. Gmail came along with 3 GBs, and now, many if not all have a Gmail account and their own domain e-mail.
My how times change...FAST!
Posted by: Phil Gerbyshak | September 29, 2007 at 10:51 PM