I’ve had several conversations with cutsomers and industry folks about specific feature capabilities of our MVaaS solution versus traditional video solutions. The comparisons run in two directions – comparing us to legacy video solutions (traditional DVRs) and comparing us more leading edge video solutions (advanced DVRs, with analytics, IP camera support, etc.)
The conversations typically center around some feature that the customer or channel partner is used to having (like having a CD burner), believes that they want (like video analytics), or didn’t realize was possible but now really wants (like an enterprise integration to their POS). In every case the conversation typically culminates with the conclusion that there are 1-2 features that the customer views as absolutely critical to their business. From the customer’s pespective, these are the must have features to be able to generate a return. From the vendor’s perspective, these are the must have features to be able to win the business. Killer features you might say.
Having the right set of killer features for your targeted market is then obviously pretty important. Having them gets you a shot at new busines, it gets you included in the RFP, it gets customers excited about the near-term value you can add. Clearly its better to have the killer features than not.
Is it the most important thing? I don’t think so. The problem is that killer features are an ever-changing thing. As customer’s use of video changes and evolves, the features that are most valuable to them change as well. As you expand the base of users of video from 10s to 100s you get new killer features from your new users. Killer features are a moving target and always should be.
One could argue that what is most important then is a company’s ability to identify and implement new killer features over time and to roll them out to their users as quickly and efficiently as possible. I’ve heard the argument that video is a pretty simple and well understood business and that there aren’t really that many changes that need to be made and certainly none that need to be quickly rolled out. I think this comes from the view that video is simply a security tool for the security and LP groups. I’m not seeing that on our side. We have customers with over 1000 users, only a handful of which are security and LP users. Almost all of the usage is from operators and managers on the business side and I can tell you their requirements are constantly evolving as they have never used video before and are still learning how best to make use of it.
It’s in this environment of broad-based utilization by a diverse set of users where having all the right killer features on day one isn’t the most important, being able to quickly react and deploy the right killer features is the key.
One of our big prospects offered up the following quote from Charles Darwin that I think sums up my view the best: