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Use Case Computing - How Consumers Approach Products

Written by Ben Bajarin Wednesday, 04 November 2009 17:37 Last Updated on Thursday, 05 November 2009 22:14

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We have been writing and talking with our clients for at least a few years now about this idea of purpose-built computing. The general idea is that consumer electronics hardware OEM’s and ODM’s need to think more about the purpose of the product and begin making decisions at the component level which accomplish that purpose. 

 

Another great way of thinking about this is outlined by Scott Anthony, co-founder of Innosight, in his latest book “The Silver Lining.”  He outlines in chapter two a concept that explains that consumers don’t buy products, they hire them to get jobs done. This is an excellent way to think about the value needed in a product as well as think through the task or tasks it is being hired for to get the job done. This job can be e-mail, mobile web surfing, entertainment, information, and more, but the point is consumers hire products to get jobs done and there are

many different jobs.

 

We have typically explained this by calling products “tools.” If you know someone in construction or have ever tackled construction yourself, you know that when you have the right tools for the job, the job becomes much easier. It is interesting to me that there are so many types of hammers in the marketplace. There are framing hammers, roofing hammers, tack hammers, etc. You would think for how long hammers have been in human history that someone could have created a hammer that could do it all which would end the market for specialty hammers. Yet this has not been the case, in fact the hammer has evolved into more specialty use cases and hammers are now being designed and innovated upon with those use cases in mind.  

 

General-purpose hammers do exist, which most Americans own, and they are good enough for most tasks. These hammers are very cheap, have low margins but high volume, and again are “good enough” for the masses.  However, if you are in construction, it is highly likely you have a specialty hammer. No framer I know uses a general-purpose hammer for framing, as it would make the job difficult and cumbersome. Instead, they have a framing hammer designed to make nailing while framing much easier. These specialty hammers have higher margins but lower volume, and deliver significantly more value to the consumer. And the consumer happily paid more because they knew it would make their job or life easier.

 

We believe the hammer market is very similar to what will happen with the computing industry as computing makes it’s way to more devices and appliances. We call this “Use Case” computing. Use Case computing is particularly important to understand if you are creating products you hope consumers will hire to get jobs done. The components you choose to implement in your product will greatly impact the product's capabilities to sufficiently or even exceedingly accomplish the job it was hired to do by your customers.   

 

We explain in our report called “From General to Specialized – Trends in SOC” that we are now seeing more specialty processors integrated into devices to compliment the CPU and accomplish more specialized tasks within the computing experience. We are seeing more dedicated media processors and graphics processors being designed and implemented in devices in a way that compliments the CPU, rather then seeing one general SOC (system on chip) with CPU, media processing and graphics all integrated on the same die. General purpose SOC’s do exist, however if someone was to use a device with a more general CPU for high resolution fast frame rate video or to play graphically rich games, the experience would not be satisfactory.

 

Because consumers approach computing products as tools to get specific jobs done, we feel there will be a strong and solid market for use case-based products. These products are essential in the product portfolio of any company designing consumer electronics products if they hope to stay competitive.

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