Outside Innovation: IBM and Sun Agreeing to a Lower Price--But the Deal's On!

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What is Outside Innovation?
It’s when customers lead the design of your business processes, products, services, and business models. It’s when customers roll up their sleeves to co-design their products and your business. It’s when customers attract other customers to build a vital customer-centric ecosystem around your products and services. The good news is that customer-led innovation is one of the most predictably successful innovation processes. The bad news is that many managers and executives don’t yet believe in it. Today, that’s their loss. Ultimately, it may be their downfall.

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LEAD USERS
Eric von Hippel coined the term "lead users" to describe a group of both customers and non-customers who are passionate about getting certain things accomplished. They may not know or care about the products or services you offer. But they do care about their project or need. Lead users have already explored innovative ways to get things done. They're usually willing to share their approaches with others.
LEAD CUSTOMERS
I use the term "lead customers" to describe the small percentage of your current customers who are truly innovative. These may not be your most vocal customers, your most profitable customers, or your largest customers. But they are the customers who care deeply about the way in which your products or services could help them achieve something they care about.
LEAD CUSTOMERS AND LEAD USERS
We’ve spent the last 25 years identifying, interviewing, selecting, and grouping customers together to participate in our Customer Scenario® Mapping sessions. Over the years, we’ve learned how to identify the people who will contribute the most to a customer co-design session. These are the same kinds of people you should be recruiting when you set out to harness customer-led innovation.
HOW DO YOU WIN IN INNOVATION?
You no longer win by having the smartest engineers and scientists; you win by having the smartest customers!
CUSTOMER CO-DESIGN
In more than 25 years of business strategy consulting, we’ve found that customer co-design is a woefully under-used capability.

April 02, 2009

IBM and Sun Agreeing to a Lower Price--But the Deal's On!

This just in from the Wall Street Journal:

"IBM has cut its takeover bid for Sun Microsystems to between $9 and $10 a share. Sun has agreed to a lower price in return for commitments from IBM that it will stick with the deal in the event of intense regulatory scrutiny."

I figured when Sun began doing major lay-offs that was also part of the deal they struck. IBM probably didn't want to inherit a bunch of people they would immediately need to lay-off. This deal is probably the best that can be expected during these gloomy times. The good news for customers is that their investments in Sun technology will be protected.

I still believe that this deal has been triggered by the sudden appetite for Cloud Computing.

Posted by Patty Seybold on April 02, 2009 in Cloud Computing, IBM, Sun | Permalink

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Outside Innovation

New ways to engage customers in co-designing your company's future - a weblog to complement the book, Outside Innovation, by Patty Seybold

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April 02, 2009

IBM and Sun Agreeing to a Lower Price--But the Deal's On!

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