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Every week, 30 companies parade through The Yankee Group, each proclaiming that its product is "The Best." The CEOs stand in my conference room swearing that the product is "so good, we don't really have competition." Then they modify that by admitting, "Well, we might have some competitors, but we're kicking the crap out of them."  Yeah, right.
But the idea of "The Best" is intriguing. Clearly a product can be best for only some set of time before it is either eclipsed by the competition or by the company itself. "Good" products might be The Best for, oh, 4 or 5 nanoseconds. "Great" products are usually The Best for several years. They define the category.
I've got examples galore. Action Communications System's WATSBOX, the first least-cost routing system, was far and away The Best product of its genre: It let communications managers cram seven hours per day - not four - on a dedicated line. VMX's voice mail invented the category; that technology eventually was ported to every PBX manufacturer as well as the central office equipment vendors.
We learned early on that the user community could adopt a best product and build on it. Northern Telecom's Meridian SL-1 PBX was the first all-digital switch with the features the market needed. It vaulted Nortel to the front of the pack. Meantime, AT&T resisted adding least-cost routing because it was afraid it would result in lost long-distance market share. Its competition didn't have that concern, and AT&T lost 60% of the PBX market. Major rule: Don't hobble your products.
The Best products not only make a user look smart, they can build an industry. Cisco's AGS Plus was the first corporate multiprotocol router; it made the company. The Cisco 12000, a carrier-class high-performance router, positioned the company as a provider of software-based products, not just hardware. Cisco's Kalpana Ethernet switch legitimized LAN switching.
Sure, some products are The Best because they hit that sweet spot between value and functionality. Apple's early portable computers weighed 23 pounds and had a form factor only a masochist could love. But the early PowerBooks were fantastic, and the Apple operating system was The Best for 10 full years. The Apple Newton, on the other hand, was flawed from the minute it was introduced. The 3Com Palm V may endure as an "insanely great" product for six months - until I can get my hands on a Palm VII.
What makes a product great?
Other recent columns by Howard Anderson
The beauty of bake-offs
More information on Check Point's Firewall-1
More information on Lotus Notes
More information on Microsoft PowerPoint
"Best of the Best"
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