Nathan's Occasional Blog

It takes tons of work to get and keep a customer, even more an evangelist. It takes one idiot for your company to blow all of that and unleash the wrath of the web.

A complete failure to care about the customer – The Office Weblog:
“I am not a happy camper at the moment and the source of my frustration is Apple Computer and their online store. Today I got a first-hand taste at just how badly the company can be at taking care of a customer. And it’s pretty much soured me on ever doing business directly with the company again.”

I read something a couple months back on Gaping Void that all of these stories keep reminding me of: Apple has gone from a “we” company to a “they” company.

Anyway, “We” companies are built by and for a community of users. Everything (including profits) flows from this core value of serving the users. We companies and their profitability are incredibly sustainable.

“They” companies are traditional companies that seek to optimize profitability at the expense of everything else. These businsses are not sustainable and they tend to overreach and ultimately end up in a long and steady decline.

Microsoft is the poster child for a “they” company.

Craigs List is the poster child for a “we” company.

Apple used to be a “we” company.

Tablet PC Buzz.com – Forum:

“Motion Computing has officially announced their LE1600 Tablet PC… You can officially count me as wanting one of these really bad!”

Amen to that! I’ve been itching to get a Tablet PC forever … and Scoble keeps giving me another reason to look at them even closer. For now I’m on a Dell D610 that my employer supplies and they’re not going to spring for a Tablet for me as a replacement … unless I can get my boss one too. As Kaj always says, “show me the love!” Anyway, I’ve always said I want a convertable Tablet instead of a slate, but it looks like they’ve got some sweet wireless keyboard options for this puppy. That and they’ve got a second battery that hooks onto the bottom of the unit to give you “all day runtime.” Oh, and for reliability of the manufacturer? The guys who started Motion are ex-Dell folks who left on good terms to start making tablets (Dell isn’t interested in making them … yet). Dell even resells Motion’s devices. Check out Motion’s site for the specs on the LE1600.