Blue Ocean Strategy: Non-Customers

One of the primary components of a successful six-path study is the focus on customers and non-customers. Non-customers, which are divided into three tiers, each of which has a specific definition, are especially important.

Paraphrasing from the book, the first tier of non-customers are current customers who are getting ready to leave. The second tier are people who consciously decide against your product. The third tier are people in distant markets.

Let's bring that back to earth using the the Nintendo Wii and -- more importantly -- it's predecessor, the Nintendo Game Cube. Young boys loved the Game Cube: it was small and cute and cheap; it even had a handle so they could pick it up and carry it to play with friends. The problem is that the core group of boys who played the Game Cube would "graduate" to a Sony PS2 or Microsoft XBox. These boys were the first tier of non-customers: current customers who were likely to leave. The second tier of non-customers were girls: they were the same age, had access to the same resources, but just didn't show interest in the Game Cube. Finally, geriatrics in nursing homes were the third tier: they thought a Game Cube was the box containing the checkers board.

Nintendo of course turned those tiers of non-customers entirely on their head. By studying the six-paths and applying what they learned to redefine the market boundaries they built the Wii and the Nintendo DS to appeal to both customers and non-customers alike. Boys love the Wii, but so do girls, young men, mom's, and just about everybody who tries it. Changing the key factors to attract girls to play the DS was especially inexpensive albeit brilliant: they came out with a version in pink. As for the Wii, it was renamed from it's code-name the Nintendo Revolution. Boys loved the name "Revolution" -- my son still does -- but they could live with the Wii. Girls went for the Wii, they had no interest in their brothers revolution.

One company that has a massive swarm of first tier non-customers is Microsoft. Vista is a disaster. One commentator, writing about the merits of Vista, described a key benefit as the inclusion of Snipping Tool, an application that takes screen-shots. That is, the strongest proponents of a multi-billion dollar project that took years to complete, greatly increased the hardware requirements needed to run, and cost almost double its predecessor were reduced to citing the inclusion of a trivial piece of freeware.

People are getting ready to flee Vista. I personally have a Vista "Ultimate" computer, a Macintosh, and I just ordered an Ubuntu (Linux) machine from Dell. Long term, putting up with the sluggish speed and instability of Windows just doesn't make sense, especially given that I'm sure Microsoft will soon enough want even more than the $400 I already paid for this awful operating system. In the case of Vista, it's not that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages: there are no advantages I can think of except that I need to use this computer to test software because Windows is what most of my clients use. If my clients change, so will I. I'll probably change anyway, and keep a Windows computer only for testing.

I'm a vocal and classic first-tier non-customer for Windows. Microsoft has literally millions more like me. I'm not being alarmist or anti-Microsoft: Gartner calls the current state of Windows "untenable" and has announced that Windows is "collapsing." Microsoft engaged in classic technical innovation: innovation for the sake of innovation, when releasing this awful beast. Now they're driving away their customers in droves.