I know a lot of people have seen this parallel before. Heck, I’ve written about it myself. But given some of the comments I’ve seen about the T5, it’s worth revisiting.
Take a look at Apple. They have a small chunk of the market compared to HP, Dell, etc. but they’re far more profitable. They design products that are clean, simple, easy to use and have a certain cool elegance. Their hardware is uninspiring on a spec sheet, but beautiful to see and wonderful to use.
The same could be said of PalmOne. Like an Apple Powerbook, the Tungsten T5 loses the “bag of features” comparison to competition from HP and Dell. But it’s simpler, more elegant and can inspire fierce brand loyalty. It costs more than the Wintel competition for the power it delivers, but it’s not all about features.
What Apple and PalmOne both get is that there is value in a good user experience. Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. What a lot of people forget is that “better” is subjective, and a lot of customers would rather have a product with elegant simplicity than one that offers more widgets.
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