乔布斯创业课：闯入者的市场策略，以NeXT为例

hi uh for those of you that don't know

me my name is Steve Jobs and this is the

first of one of many chalk talks we're

going to have this year together

the subject to this one is really

important which is who is our Target

customer

why are they selecting our products over

our competitions and what distribution

channels are we going to use to reach

these customers a lot of light bulbs

have come on over the last 90 days I've

had the Good Fortune to be with a lot of

you out in the field meeting customers

getting first-hand information as to

what they're doing with our products you

have fed a lot of information

to the management of this company we've

done a lot of thinking and looked at the

data and all of a sudden out of this

data some very very important things

have come to light I want to share them

with you today

we've had historically a very hard time

figuring out exactly who our customer

was and I'd like to show you why

when we first look at the workstation

Marketplace

looks something like this

and the biggest player as you know in

the workstation Marketplace is Sun

second biggest player is HP Apollo third

biggest player is deck and IBM with the

rs6000 is now in the game as well

and then outside the workstation

Marketplace the very large market for

PCs

and macintosh's the traditional personal

computer Market

now

we looked at the workstation Marketplace

and we said wow we have multitasking we

have great networking just like the

workstations we use Unix we have a

pretty good development environment

so we're a lot like these folks but then

again these folks don't really care

about user interface or at least they

haven't been able to execute on it if

they do they don't really have great

third-party application software and

these are not machines for mere mortals

so we're not like them at all and then

we look at the PCS

and we do strive to get a suite of

application software that allows us to

be just like these folks

we do strive to attain ease of use

and actually are easier to use than even

a Macintosh today so we're a lot like

these folks but then again we have

multitasking and networking that is an

order of magnitude beyond what you can

do with the PC today so over the last

year we've oscillated back and forth

between thinking that the PCS and the

Macs were our competitors and this is

where we want it to be or the

workstations were our competitors and

this is where we want it to be in

essence are we an easier to use

workstation or are we a more powerful PC

and

had it not been for a revelation if you

will five or six months ago we probably

would still be oscillating today and

what that Revelation was was that

somebody turned up the power of our

microscope a little bit and we saw

something very important and what we saw

was that the workstation Marketplace is

really not just one workstation

Marketplace but two

there's the traditional half which is

what we've come to know and love science

and engineering

which does indeed look just like this

but there's a new half emerging which

we're calling the professional half

that is

professionals that are not scientists

and Engineers who want the power of

workstations

and inside this Marketplace there are

several sub-markets

publishing the high end of the

publishing Market Tech pubs

Medical

a lot of database driven applications

higher education

etc etc etc legal markets in here many

many markets are in here

and what's very interesting is Sun is

the only company that seems to have eked

out a beachhead over here

and our data says that in 1990 Sun sold

around 40 000 computers into this market

and had about an 80 percent market share

so the entire professional workstation

Market in 1990 was about 50 000 units

and Sun had the majority share that's

why we didn't see it before it was such

a small blip compared to the workstation

Marketplace or of course the PC

Marketplace that it did not show up on

our radar screen but we've seen it now

and it's good that we have because this

is a Marketplace that we can Dominate

and it's a Marketplace that's going to

be very large the market research data

that we have and also our gut feelings

from many many years in the industry say

that this Marketplace in 91 is going to

grow to about a hundred thousand units

in size it's going to double this year

and next year in 92 it's going to Triple

to about 300 000 units

that is a substantial Marketplace

what is also exciting about this

Marketplace is that a hundred percent of

our volume goes in here

in other words if we could shift fifty

thousand computers into all these

markets this year we would have a 50

market share of one of the fastest

growing segments of the entire computer

industry now let's examine why this

thing is going to grow what is going to

cause this thing to grow from 50 to 100

000 to 300 000 units clearly it is not

these people deciding to not to stop

being engineers and go to business

school and re-emerge over here that's

not how it's going to grow it's going to

grow from two factors number one

these folks moving in PCS and Mac owners

deciding that they need more

sophisticated networking more

sophisticated development environments

Etc deciding they need to step up to

workstations and one other class of

users there's a lot of people now using

3270 terminals or terminal emulators

hooked up to a Mainframe

for database driven applications more

and more they are deciding to move their

applications onto a powerful desktop

workstation connected via networking to

the Mainframe so that they can get the

application out of the Mainframe and

onto the desktop for more rapid

development for better user interface

and for better economics

so these two factors are what's going to

cause this Market to increase almost an

order of magnitude and size over the

next 24 months and we can get half of it

now

one of the things that is very

interesting is that sun is today

the major participant in this

marketplace with an 80 market share

and I personally don't see too many

other people being able to move into

this Marketplace over the next few years

I believe sun will remain our major

competitor

funny thing is while we're convincing

these people using PCS and Macs and

these people using 3270 terminals are

equivalents to move in to the

professional workstation segment sun is

if you will our friend because they're

going to spend their marketing money to

convince people to move into this

segment but the minute they've made

their choice to move into the segment

whether we've convinced them or son has

convinced them sun and next are mortal

enemies

and the good news which we'll talk about

in a minute is that we've had a chance

to suit up against sun with our new

products about 15 times in the last 90

days and we've won

15 out of 15.

now we want to address what is

compelling these people to move into

this new category of professional

workstations

and secondly once they've decided to

make the move into the category why are

we going to beat Sun let's take a look

there's three primary reasons

the first one is that every single

customer we've talked to here

has the need

to write one custom application they've

got one Mission critical app that

they've got to write and so the

development environment becomes critical

in addition to that these applications

are very Network intensive so they need

very sophisticated networking

capabilities which they cannot find in

PCS and Macs and third

these applications primarily are

database driven which means that they

want to write the application on the

desktop machine but this application on

the desktop machine through the

sophisticated networking is going to

communicate with SQL databases running

in either an IBM Mainframe or running

Oracle or cybase on a sequent machine

something like that so they need the

sophistication of the networking and the

ability to seamlessly talk to databases

running on large servers

and the development environment and the

networking and the database

sophistication together are things they

cannot begin to get from these class of

products

so the first thing we're seeing is the

custom app

is the key thing that's driving these

people to upgrade from PCS and

workstations

and even down here we see the same thing

people that have Mission critical apps

they need to do deciding they don't want

to write the application itself on the

Mainframe and use it via a terminal but

rather they want to write the

application in a much better development

environment where they can create the

app much faster with a much better user

interface much more cost effectively and

talk to the database on the Mainframe

through sophisticated networking so

custom applications is our number one

reason driving people into this category

now the second reason is one that may

come up initially

or it may come up in a

secondary way for the first sale of

products to the customer or it may even

come up in a secondary sale three to six

months down the road and that is the

desire to use great productivity apps

that's number two

great productivity apps

as an example

when it comes up in the first sale many

times people will want

their employees to be using the custom

app ninety percent of the time but still

need productivity apps 10 of the time

but more likely they will start to

understand that they want to put our

workstations on the desks of a wider

audience than just need to use the

custom app they'll want to include more

administrative Personnel more marketing

Personnel have them all on the same

network so that they can share the

interpersonal Computing that our system

provides and productivity apps will come

into play

to the extent that we have even better

productivity apps that are available on

PCS and to the extent that those

productivity apps

use the network so they can tie people

together we're going to win perfect

example is of course Lotus improv

another example is full wysiwyg word

perfect a third example will be of

course our Advanced version of Adobe

Illustrator that ships in the next 60

days so having better productivity apps

will be important to the primary sale

I believe what we're starting to see

first Boston is a good example

in the financial services Market that I

forgot to draw

of a company where we sold 40 or 50

computers to primarily for the custom

app in one group

three four months later a second group

comes back and wants to buy over a

thousand computers

for

another group that is more concerned now

with great productivity apps as the

computers start to spread more widely in

the organization

the third reason that people are moving

in which is one that I think will not

become Paramount in 1991 but within 24

months will be the largest reason people

are buying our computers

is interpersonal computing

improving group productivity and

collaboration through the use of

sophisticated desktop computers

and right now when we first meet a

customer we tell them about

interpersonal Computing I'm sure most of

them would rather hear about the custom

app Solutions and the great productivity

apps that we have but as these customers

become educated in the sales cycle I'm

sure all of you have seen the value of

interpersonal Computing rise in their

eyes

and as we are successful customer by

customer over the next year to 18 months

interpersonal Computing will be

something that rises on the customer's

agenda of what's important even as we

walk in the door

as Regis McKenna once said the best

marketing is education and as we

accomplish that education more and more

customers are going to be asking us

about interpersonal Computing versus us

having to educate them

now interpersonal Computing is something

that again relies on a very powerful

desktop computer and very sophisticated

networking neither of which are

available in these classes of machines

so to the extent that an organization

wants to use interpersonal Computing

again they are compelled into the

professional workstation category

now one of the things we pretty much

know

is that everyone who is considering a

purchase of NeXT computers at one point

or another in the sales cycle calls up

son

they'd be foolish not to

unfortunately the reciprocal is not yet

true our goal is to make it so that

everyone who is considering a purchase

of a son calls us up and you'll see more

and more of our marketing targeted to

try to make this happen as the year

rolls on

so let's say sun or next spend their

hard-earned marketing dollars and sales

energy and convince a customer to move

into this category and the customer

being a smart one calls up the other

company so that sun and next are always

competing for every order

what are our key competitive strengths

against Sun

it turns out that they are exactly the

three things that are driving people

into the category in the first place we

couldn't ask for a much better situation

let's examine them

custom applications it turns out that

our development environment is vastly

superior to Suns and this is being

decided not by us but by our customers

best technical people when they return

from our software camp

our best competitive weapon to

illustrate this point is to get our

customers best two or three developers

to spend a week and to come to Redwood

City or Pittsburgh and go through our

developer Camp they will go back raving

about next step and telling their own

management that next step will allow

them to build their custom app three

times faster than Sun

we've had a lot of experience in this so

far and I think one of the things we

need to do is to use our software Camp

more we're not seeing enough corporate

developers through the software Camp

we're not getting potential customers to

send their best technical people through

our software Camp either soon enough in

the sales cycle or at all and it's an

area where we could really get more

benefit

secondly

once they're in this category comparing

us with sun

the comparison of productivity apps

really tilts in our favor

the productivity App Suite that we now

have and are in the process of getting

dwarfs that of sun

not only do we have more apps that are

easier to use for this customer but we

have the Breakthrough ones we have the

Lotus improv we have the wysiwyg word

perfect etc etc so once they're in this

category the productivity app comparison

is no longer against these guys it's

against sun and we're winning hands down

the third interpersonal computing

a demo will communicate

very rapidly how Superior next is in

interpersonal Computing and we will be

supplying you videotape of a demo that

we've been using a lot I would suggest

you use it to show your customers and I

would suggest that you get the software

that's on this videotape and learn how

to demo it yourself

very rapidly we have been able to

convince customers that because of our

multimedia features and our ease of use

features

these people can use interpersonal

Computing on our system to achieve a far

superior result than they can with sons

so these are the three competitive

weapons that we have against Sun

and as we use them to move people into

the category

they are already very well positioned to

see us in a favorable light once they're

inside the category

so I hope this gives you a feel

for what we've learned in the last 90 to

120 days I have no doubt that we will

continue to learn more and more together

at an Ever accelerating rate as we get

more and more customers we've been

listening a lot to them and we intend to

listen even more to them

to continue refining this professional

workstation market definition and what

is important to these customers and our

competitive position against our number

one competitor Sun

I hope this has proved useful I'm really

excited to hear some of your comments

and thoughts about what you think of all

this and of course more and more

information about how we continue to

refine in the future thanks a lot give

me some feedback if this is a successful

way of communicating and I'm sure I'll

see most of you soon and I'll see you

all at the retreat thanks