I’ve had some trouble responding here’s because it’s hard to separate commitment from communications to some degree. And as your write market changed and product strategies change as well. So while I can see how the relation between communications and commitment exists, such that we hold companies to the promises they communicate, the actual communication and commitment are two separate entities.You are overlooking some substantial Microsoft u-turns: Nokia/Windows Phone, PlaysForSure, Xbox One always online, vowing never to sell Xbox One without Kinnect. This week Microsoft announced their "always available" ebook store was closing.
Markets change and product strategies have to change with them. Stop readily gulping down what companies say and look at what companies do. I genuinely believe Microsoft are committed to their current strategy but I believed Apple was committed to delivering their Qi charger in 2018, the one they cancelled last week.
You can question the commitment a company has for a variety of reasons . But it doesn’t have to do with their communication strategy.
If I use your examples most of the issue is around the fact that MS has made large changes to their business. A lot of this as a result of the fact that their business plan was failing or a stark change in leadership occurred and they didn’t want MS heading in that direction further.
If I were to use your examples starting with Nokia; MS never communicated they were going into mobile. They were arrogant and didn’t think their walled garden strategy could ever fall especially to something like mobile.
By the time Balmer decided to get into mobile they lost the race. So they had to cancel. (For now).
Investors desperately pushed MS to come up with a mobile strategy because the leadership was not responding to changing marketing conditions. The purchase of Nokia was their move. And conditionally the failure of mobile was their exit.
Xbox One is a symptom of lack of communication, if they communicated that hey were going to go heavy on Kinect and TV well before reveal they would have found out quickly no one would have wanted it. An extra $100 peripheral with a weaker console, the only reasonable change to stay in business was to remove Kinect. It was a technology that had much better applications outside of gaming.
eBook strategy was once again a failure on MS, they didn’t tell anyone they were doing it and they thought they could get a piece of the pie that amazon was eating up. It’s removal once again is because no one used it.
It would appear to me that by not communicating some ideas and gauging interest and having a thought out plan that aligned with the rest of company goals, MS suffered quite a few losses.
If people are getting commitment and communications confused I understand why there is such a division here in opinions. I am okay with a change in commitments if it makes sense for the business to stay alive or move resources elsewhere to stay competitive. I’m generally not okay with if they announce something I didn’t expect at all; unexpected cancellation of good services or investing into something I think has no future.
Since I generally invest money into companies I watch, I am looking for communications and data points to help guide that decision. It’s up to me to decide if the market will respond positively for what they are attempting to do before I buy stock.
But when a company says nothing at all, I have no data points to work with and nothing I can infer with. And it’s much more “hope” to invest in those companies and I don’t For the reasons cited above. I have to really trust the management team to invest in something like that.
A lot of people accuse me of a lot of things, but I’m investing multiple thousands of dollars for investment purposes. I’ve got a lot riding on the success and failure of things and I can’t wait years after the successes to make a purchase because the prices go up. I have a need to know sooner than later. That might be different need for customers however and I see that now.
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