E3, The Big 3 and Cisco
This past week we were once again privileged to bear witness to the awesomeness that is E3, and if you’re like me then you were waiting impatiently to see what the big three (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo) had to offer this year. It didn’t end up being a blockbuster show, but there was a lot of goodies. Check out the Xbox Smartglass if you get a chance!
Nintendo had the WiiU there to demonstrate as well, and although the Wii ended up being a huge sucess it did soon fizzle. Can the WiiU create enough traction for Nintendo? Sony and Micrsoft continue to do battle as well with their offerings of games, services, and future promises. It reminds me of a lot of other big three situations.
Android, Apple, and RIM come to mind. Android and Apple continue to do battle while RIM tries to stay afloat and find its place again.
Then of course, there’s networking…
Cisco, Juniper, and HP
Just like the above examples we have two contenders duking it out while the third struggles to stay in the race and try to come out on top. (maybe hoping the other two tire each other out?) So who determines winners and losers? How does anyone become king of the hill, and stay there?
Cisco has been at the top for a while.
Certainly an achievement! Still by their own admission they lost focus and had to not so long ago re-focus their vision. Meanwhile HP was coming on strong but seems to have lost some gas. Juniper continues to grow and many customers are seriously evaluating them as a replacement in their network infrastructure. Others have already made the jump.
There are many variables that contribute to the success or failure of any given enterprise. Some is focus, some is market, and some is the ever shifting needs and desires of the consumer.
In this day and age of social media all of the manufacturers (be it networking, games, phones, or otherwise) need to keep their fingers on the pulse of their customers.
What do customers need, think they need, want, and what challenges are they facing?
There are always other companies waiting for the chance to battle as one of the big three. With recent news that Huawei has made landfall and aggressively pursuing market share no one can afford to be caught lying down.
In the meantime it falls to us to knows our needs, communicate them, stay educated, and pass along our value adds to our customers.
I for one think it’s an exciting time, and with E3 done for the year it’s time to look to next year.
In the meantime I’m going to get online and pwn some noobs.
