I've met a lot of people who say they'd love to start a company if they only had an idea for something that hadn't been done before. And some take this to an extreme. For example, I've heard more than one person quote Charles Duell, US Patent Commissioner in 1899 who allegeldy said, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." (see this interesting article in USA Today on bogus quotations) With 20/20 hindsight it's clear that such a position was bogus then. What's surprising now is that even today many people find it difficult to see opportunity when it's all around us. In essence, they believe that everything worth doing has been done.
Sure, the mouse trap has been pretty reliable for a century or so. And, the ten speed bicycle hasn't changed much since I was a kid. Iced tea is iced tea; coffee is coffee; burgers are burgers; economy cars are economy cars; desktop PCs are PCs and so on. Or are they?
I believe that you need to look beyond the obvious to understand the business value of breaking new ground. If you bake business model, branding, design, market reach and other concepts into the mix, it's easy to see that innovation isn't so much about product per se, it's about a combination of factors that add up to value in the mind of the buyer. After all...
- Starbucks didn't invent coffee
- McDonald's didn't invent the burger
- Honda didn't invent the automobile
- Nantucket Nectars didn't invent iced tea
- Dell didn't invent personal computers
- TiVo didn't invent video recording
- and so on
These are examples of companies that made it big but didn't really break totally new ground. They innovated around a business model, a feature, a design concept, a distribution model or some other factor that made a big difference in value from the perspective of the customer.
It's easy to identify new parallel examples in today's technology business community. Facebook, didn't invent the facebook, they revolutionized it. You Tube didn't invent web-based video, they revolutionized. In fact, Google didn't invent search or online advertising, they revolutionized it.
And, there are less obvious emerging players as well. I like the idea, for example, of N-Computing revolutionizing how we deliver computing power to our families, our schools and emerging nations.
Similarly, KACE is all about making a huge difference in the large, existing systems management market. When we started this company in 2003, it was easy to see that incumbent players like Altiris, LANDesk, Microsoft SMS and others had missed a big opportunity to bring powerful systems management capabilities to the mainstream Fortune 100,000 companies that comprise the mid-sized enterprise market in the US. In fact, at that time, no single vendor occupied the famed upper-right quardrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
We have a market-driven approach to leading the market for systems management appliances. Our vision includes delivering easy-to-use, comprehensive systems management appliances that install in about a day and cost about one third of software alternatives. This value point is very compelling for systems administrators who wear many hats and face on-going resource constraints in the face of growing systems adminstration requirements.
It's a new twist on an old problem... it's breaking New Ground.
Rob Meinhardt
CEO, KACE
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