We had an interesting call late last week from a company, and from the sounds of it, they sounded a lot like us. Like us, they were focused on light weight programming models, and were looking at the impact of integrating real time communications with the business process. We have more of a Web 2.0 flavor to what we do, but they seemed like close cousins. Pat and I were pretty happy to hear about them, not only because misery loves company (it’s a joke!). We feel like good ideas are common, good execution rare, and a good combination of the two are nearly extinct. To have another group tackling the same problem is reassuring, and I look forward to sharing what we know with them and the rest of our industry. In the open source world, they say that when there are a thousand eyes looking at the software, all bugs are shallow. Probably the same with business models. (I admit, though, that there’s a little voice in the back of my head that says that the Venus Di Milo could never be designed by committee, but I digress.) Were they happy to hear about us? Well… not so much. Something about competition.
That got me thinking about the traditional telecom company, especially as it applies to the vendor and carrier communities. These communities have histories defined by dominance - by market share - by Win/Lose. Of course, these definitions are not black and white, for there never was a single carrier, for even AT&T in the 50’s did not provide phone service to Russia. However, in terms of the size and number of companies involved in the market, there was a natural tendency to favor large companies. Large companies could compete on size where size matters, and that size would sustain advantage. These large companies would, by their scale, dominate the landscape and punish newcomers into the market. I often see IMS as their latest efforts to keep the companies large.
Not all markets follow this model. There are no dominant law firms, no dominant plumbers. No dominant web design firms. Why? Because in these markets, closeness to customers, in combination with lower barriers to entry, do not favor size - size is actually an impediment to success. Even with accounting firms, the big four (and then there were four) only dominate auditing for public companies. Auditing public companies requires size, it’s difficult and has natural barriers to entry. The vast majority of accounting firms do the day-to-day work of taxes, book keeping and whatever-those-accountants-do-for-fun.
Due to the natural maturation of our market, I predict the end of dominance in our market, especially as it pertains to applications and new services. We won’t have one competitor - we’ll have thousands. We won’t dominate any market, or any sub-market. Our success is to dominate the satisfaction of our small number of close customers. And will be for any company like us. If you are like us - welcome. No threat here, only friends.
In the end, the Thomas Howe Company will dominate Cape Cod, as much as any company could. And trust me, it needs domination.