Engineering Driven vs. Community Driven (was Re: Ugliness)

[Crane, Matthew]

Clever design != feat of engineering.   
 
Matt

________________________________

From: community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org
[mailto:community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org] On Behalf Of hank williams
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 4:26 PM
To: List for Openmoko community discussion
Subject: Re: Engineering Driven vs. Community Driven (was Re: Ugliness)




On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 3:57 PM, Crane, Matthew <mcrane03 at harris.com>
wrote:


	There is nothing incredible about apple's electrical, software,
or mechanical engineering.  IMHO.. 
	 
	The marketing/buzz machine is incredible though. 


I presume that you have never worked on a team that has built a
successful mainstream consumer product, because if you did, you
certainly would not be able to dismiss their success in this manner.
Making things that sell has very little to do with advertising. "hype"
does not just come from nowhere, as if from the heavens. If crappy
products could win based on good advertising, all that would be required
was money and clearly that is not nearly enough (see Microsoft Vista).

The bottom line is that best selling tech gadgets, software, and
computers sell to primarily tech savvy people because they like them.
They like them, because the designers and developers have figured out
how to make broadly appealing products. That is hard. If you are
suggesting otherwise without actually having a resume that suggests you
have done so yourself, you really don't have much of an argument.

Hank
 


________________________________

	
	From: community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org
[mailto:community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org] On Behalf Of hank williams
	
	Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 1:52 PM 

	To: List for Openmoko community discussion
	Subject: Re: Engineering Driven vs. Community Driven (was Re:
Ugliness)
	



		If this is primarily a developer platform, why are there
so many intense opinions about such superficial things as color and
marketing anyways?
		


	In today's world, there is *very* little daylight between
marketing and engineering. They are of a piece. The product design, the
feature set, and yes even the physical form factor are all both
engineering issues as well as marketing issues. Apple is a prime example
of this. The beauty of the design of their products is all about
marketing, but could not be achieved without incredible engineering on
the electrical, software, and mechanical engineering fronts. So I don't
think, particularly for a phone, you can separate these issues.
	
	Hank 
	

	-- 
	blog: whydoeseverythingsuck.com 

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