Why technology companies have a hard time selling complex ideas.

Engineering technology is moving forward today, but its finding users are a hard sell for some of the big concepts. PTC used to avoid small minded people by simply going over their heads. Find out who the boss is, and just talk to that person instead of wasting your time with the users. The boss doesn’t trifle with little things like how things work – that’s where you can make the bigger point. Sell the vision. Push the platform. And pull out all those dusty words that users don’t understand anyway.

Why are these technology companies having so much difficulty communicating their vision for a connected future? In a word, because what they are trying to communicate is a simple idea, but they are talking about it in as complex language as they can invent. And I think this really works against them. Sure, they sound more erudite to themselves and to management, but to be honest, users don’t have any idea what they’re talking about, and I’d guess most of the people spewing the nonsense couldn’t put it in plain language if they were forced to.

The concept is usually simple. All of your data is stored in a single location, managed by someone who charges you for it. All of your applications are installed once on a centralized server, again, managed by someone who charges you for it. The applications don’t have to be programmed to accommodate multiple operating systems or hardware. It doesn’t have to play nice with other invasive consumer grade programs. It’s great when you have unlimited bandwidth where ever you are, and need flexibility as to who will access your data or your tools. It’s less great when you have limited internet bandwidth, want to control your data or your tools, or when you want to pay up front and then decide for yourself how you use those assets.

When a vendor’s language seems unintelligible, there are often a couple of core reasons:

• There’s something(s) they don’t want you to know
• The vendor is trying to sell a range of products instead of the individual tools you are interested in
• The intended audience is probably up a couple levels, depending on the size of your company
• Managers are generally uninterested in technical details, and selling a platform removes the responsibility for any technical details – or kicks that can down the road after the PO arrives
• End users are all about the technical details, but it’s just not cost effective to get into the nitty gritty details if you’re selling a whole platform
• The vendor doesn’t understand how smaller businesses work, but they will still try to shoehorn you into their process
• Maybe a marketing person or a member of the press is just parroting back someone else’s words

PTC in the late 1990s lost the confidence of their customers as soon as they started selling over the heads of their users. Companies that used to sell CAD have grown up, and are now themselves large enterprises. I’m guessing that they are losing track of who their customers are – they keep trying to sell at their own level even as that level moves up. Many (most?) CAD customers are still small businesses, and can’t relate to the enterprise way of doing things.

There are unrealized synergies in developing architectures for today’s smart, connected products.

The truth at the end of the day is that the platform is really designed to be more efficient for the developer. SOOO much less tech support. You don’t have to worry about versions. EVERYBODY is always on maintenance. Don’t have to worry about software versions because everyone is always on the latest. The software is always installed on a fixed server hardware configuration. Whew! So much less to worry about. They have in fact figured out how to keep selling the same thing over and over again without needing to take the user into account.

The platform doesn’t seem to have a downside until you consider it from the point of view of the customer – the end user. Maybe we have a specific tool we need to use with that data. Maybe we want to save our money for other purposes, and can make use of a version of software for 10 years or more. Maybe our data contractually can’t be kept off-site. Maybe (shock) we don’t trust Google or Amazon or Microsoft to be responsible for security (including from internal-to-platform threats). Maybe we want this tool from that place and some other tool from another place. Or maybe we just want to have control over our own data and tools without being subject to external dependency.

We did after all reject the centralized servers of the 1980s and prior for a reason.

Just because you can hook phone users into this perpetual subscription dependency doesn’t mean that it’s good for all business. But that same business model is being pushed onto all companies. First Adobe, then Autodesk, and the other dominoes just fall into line.

Large organizations would be better off to use in-house local clouds because they have the expertise and hardware resources to pull it off. Smaller medium sized organizations would still be better off administering their own installations because they are paying a premium to have someone else do it, and it’s just not cost effective, in addition to several of the reasons stated above. Individuals without any IT skills or very small organizations might benefit from a centralized server in the same way that you rent or lease a car if you don’t have funds to buy one. It’s not an efficient use of your money, but you need access to those tools with essentially no capital.

What I’m saying is don’t feel like you’re missing something the next time you hear a big corporate baboon try to talk over your head. He’s probably selling something you don’t need. The platform revolution is just a series of big companies trying to bully you back into the “company store” dependency from a century or more ago – The big coal company moves all the workers to a new town far away from any other stores, and once you’re captive sells you all the stuff you need to live at the “Disney” rate (3x what something is worth) – a perpetual renter. Don’t fall for it.