Very often I have gone to take an interview for a Product Management position where the persons experience spans the Enterprise space. This is a tricky interview for the person at the other end, because there are some substantial differences in the Product Management experience you gain with Desktop or Consumer products versus Enterprise Products.
Desktop Software Products
In the Desktop Space -- software can be built for general consumers or specific segments/markets. For example Adobe Reader from Adobe Systems (ADBE) is a consumer oriented software. But Photoshop from Adobe is meant for the high end Imaging and graphics users. Adobe Reader is for general consumers, Adobe Photoshop for specific graphics software users.
Other examples of consumer software are Yahoo Messenger, Norton Antivirus etc. Whilst AutoCAD from AutoDesk Inc. (ADSK) is focused on Architects -- a specific customer segment. General consumers dont use AutoCAD but do often use an Antivirus or Messenger client software.
Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), Google (GOOG) are consumer software companies. Adobe Inc. (ADBE) is mainly creating desktop software for the graphics, video, and imagaing markets. So overall companies also tend to be focused on either general consumers or specific need customers. So what do Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL) do? Both companies build platforms for (primarily) desktop software.
Other Product Management Primers of Interest Qualities of a Product Manager Software Product Management
Continued... Differences between Desktop & Enterprise Software
» Differences between Desktop & Enterprise Software from TheBizofCoding
This post continues from my previous "primer" post on product management -- Product Management of Enterprise V/s Desktop Products. We will try to understand the practical differences in Product Management for Desktop & Enterprise software... [Read More]
Tracked on: June 25, 2006 11:37 PM | Permalink to Trackback