Back in 1983, the Osborne Computer was selling relatively well when the founder of the company announced plans for the next version of the machine that would be coming out in the next year or so. The new one would be much better, so people stopped buying the current version and the company went bankrupt before the new one launched.
The lesson learned was to not reveal a follow-up product too early as to avoid hurting sales of the current model. It makes sense, and it’s generally a good thing, but there is still a down side.
reMarkable Paper Pro
A friend of ours just purchased reMarkable 2 tablets for their entire company, as they felt they’d be beneficial for the staff to use. It was a good move, but came just a few weeks before reMarkable surprised everyone by releasing their newest tablet (the reMarkable Paper Pro).
reMarkable kept the new tablet under very tight wraps, and even people who followed them closely had no idea that a new one was coming. This helped keep sales of the reMarkable 2 steady, but it left people (like my friend) feeling kind of bummed that they spent so much money on a batch of products that were outdated so very quickly.
reMarkable clearly learned lessons from Osbourne, but is there a better place in the middle? They protected themselves quite well and kept the older one selling, but did it hurt their reputation? I can see both sides of this, and I’m not sure what I would have done if I was reMarkable.
What would you do? How early would you announce a new product like the reMarkable Paper Pro, both to protect yourself from the Osborne Effect but also to let people situate themselves for the device that would be best for them?
