Marketing Orientation and VMWare

One company that was always a pioneer in the market space of virtualization is VMWare.  I have been a user of their VMWare Workstation products, and on the Macintosh, a user of VMWare Fusion.  Recently, the latest version of the Mac version, Fusion 3.0, is riddled with bugs, loss of features from previous version, and degraded performance.  They did a major overhaul in with recent bug fixes, but I'm still seeing many bugs.

At the trade show MacWorld, I dropped by the VMWare booth, and all I found there were mostly sales or marketing that know the basics about the product.  I asked one to demonstrate a stable feature, dragging items from the desktop in Windows to Mac, in front of an audience, and much to his chagrin, the feature didn't seem to work.

This got me to thinking, is VMWare disconnected from the customer.  I recall long ago that there were technical people that attended trade shows, but now I am seeing those that make the product so far removed with what seems layers of management.  I can only guess, as I don't work there, but if the severe, what I personally feel, is misalignment in customer requirements for their 3.0 release combined with quantity and severity of bugs in the release, I have to consider there's something amiss at VMWare.

So I did some sleuthing on the Internet and found this at my first glance:

• Inside Scoop at VMWare from GlassDoor: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VMware-Reviews-E12830.htm
• Articles Loss of Key People:
• http://www.siliconbeat.com/2008/09/09/vmware-co-founder-calls-it-quits-shares-hit-lowest-since-ipo/
• http://virtualization.info/en/news/2008/09/mendel-rosenblum-co-founder-and-chief.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/technology/09vmware.html
• http://virtualization.info/en/news/2008/07/vmware-loses-its-ceo.html
• http://virtualization.info/en/news/2008/09/vmware-loses-r-executive-vice-president.html

What the Hell is Market Oriented

In the Marketing class that I took at Yonsei (BIZ1102 Marketing in Fall 2008 taught by Dr. Seigyoung Auh) I came across this concept of Market Oriented.  This is where the marketing is incorporatied horizontally across an organization and where every function has an understanding of the customer.  This is quite different that many companies that segregate and isolate people into functional groups like marketing, sales, finance, engineering, etc.  and use serial communication, which is like throwing a brick over a wall with a message attached.

The article that was amazing, problably required reading for every good marketing class is: What the Hell Is "Market Oriented"? by Benson P. Shapiro, found in the Harvard-Business-Review in Nov-Dec 1988 edition:

• http://hbr.org/1988/11/what-the-hell-is-market-oriented/ar/1

This article is absolutely timeless, and I see countless examples of companies that are so disconnected from the customer, such as excluding developers and software quality assurance from attending trade shows.  Many times I have gone to conventions, and dealt with those that either don't care about the development or quality of a product they are trying to sell, or they simply do not have the knowledge or connections to enact change that could improve a product.

The Missing Link is Design

Ever since I was a child I was creating huge theme parks, designing businesses, imagining huge systems. Active imagination is good, because you can discern how to use what you learn. There's a certain finesse in creating things, works of art in any profession.

As I navigate between the roads of technology and business, modeling ideas and design architectures I am discovering are sought after skills, and this is my core talent. And I came across a book that puts it all together, the proverbial missing link.

This is The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive US Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper. Here he shows how many of the things I'm learning in my business college are obsolete, as far as accounting and operational systems that are oriented toward manufacturing and come from the industrial era long ago. Now we are on a new age, the Information Age, and these outdated old models don't work. In any event, this is a fun read, definitely challenges one's way of thinking to accept a new way, and learn about delivering products that people not only need, but actually enjoy to use.

Segment III GE in South Korea

In a California State University, you have to take general education curriculum to get an undergraduate degree.  These are divided into three segments, where Segment I and II can be completed at the community college.  Segment III, is upper division only, meaning the junior and senior years of one's education.  Segment III requires three courses covering culture, ethnic, and social diversity.

Well, what better way to get "culture, ethnic, and social diversity" than to travel to the actual country!  At SFSU, you can fulfill this requirement through a study abroad: http://www.sfsu.edu/~studyabr/CSUIPandSFStateBilateral/CSUIPAndSFStateBilateral.html.

So this is what I did, I traveled to Korea, and I had an amazing experience in not only understanding Korean culture (as it's changing and evolving), but also understanding American culture.  I also developed stronger research and analytical skills, and gained a deeper perspective into a fields of business, economics, anthropology as well as culture, politics, and history within East Asian region and how it relates to the developing changes in the world at large. 

Now, I can officially check this part of my requirements off, and open the door to new opportunities in life from this new understanding I gained in life from my voyage to Korea.