Verizon FIOS in the Sky

It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon. I’m reading an operations management textbook on the porch while my wife is off running errands. It’s a typical Sunday afternoon, until I see a plane carrying out a mission overhead. This mission is directed at a small box located approximately 7 feet from where I am sitting. As the plane circles around the route 128 area near my home, I can’t help but think about the battles being fought over my cable box. Only a few months ago I switched from Comcast to RCN. RCN had mailed me a flyer advertising their much lower priced cable TV service. I looked into it and could not see any reason not to switch. $20 a month cheaper, all the same channels, with the addition of DVR. So I switched. RCN won that battle. Now up in the sky is another company jumping into the fight, Verizon.

Verizon FIOS TV aerial advertisement over RT 128

At first I find this all a little odd. Here are large companies all fighting to be the provider of my cable television service. They are spending large sums of money, sending sales people door-to-door letting people know FIOS TV is available in the area, paying for aerial advertisements, setting up FIOS kiosks in the mall, visiting local businesses and giving out FIOS basketballs. I also get flyers in the mail almost daily from Verizon, Comcast, and RCN. Meanwhile, I am just looking out to see who is cheaper.

To me it seems they are all in a market where price is the main differentiator and just over the horizon most content will be available through the internet anyway. I know these companies realize this. So, it really makes me wonder why they are so eager to invest in, and enter into, the cable TV market. Shouldn’t they just be focusing on the internet market? It seems to be a no brainer that in 5 to 6 years from now all broadcasts will be through the internet. Customers will soon only require internet access.

Maybe these companies see cable television as a loss leader for future internet subscriptions. Currently television packages can be bundled with internet service. The fight to be my cable provider might actually be their chance to be my internet provider. When television is available through the internet and consumers realize they no longer need a separate TV service, these companies will not care. We will have become their internet service customers. If I’m right, look for your monthly cable bill to drop and the internet service to increase. This way when you drop your cable service most of your monthly payments will be tied up in your internet service anyway.

As a customer it’s hard to tell what the long-term strategy is for these companies. But enough of this, I need to go checkout the prices for Verizon FIOS TV.

Getting Customer Buy-in for Innovative Technology

Many innovative technology creators experience trouble selling ideas for new software concepts or technologies to organizations that have solid operational processes. I find this especially true if the technology does not fit in with the organization’s current process even if the technology can help reduce costs, save time, and or increase quality.

To some, this seems like a chicken or egg thing. The organization’s current process does not match the use of the technology so they do not by into it, and the company will not change their current process because they do not have the tools needed to change their process. I see this as a misconception. Processes are created to gain efficiency and accuracy based on the resources, information, and time that constrains the organization. If a new technology comes along that changes these constraints, then the process needs to be flexible enough to become efficient and accurate given the flexibility in constraints that the new technology provides.

For example, consider the fictitious organization, Thinkmuch Inc. Thinkmuch is a logistics consulting company. Customers come to them for help on transporting large awkward items (such as houses and large boats) over long distances. Thinkmuch cannot afford to create detailed plans for transporting their customers’ items only to have the customer disagree with the methods and plans of transportation. So, Thinkmuch has come up with a process of two phases to create their plans. First they create high level plans and then get buy-in from the customer. They don’t waste time with many details on the first phase because if the customer doesn’t like the plan, the time creating the details of the plan is wasted. With Thinkmuch’s current resources, detailed planning takes weeks apposed to high level plans that only take hours to create.

Thinkmuch Inc. is now being presented with a technology called Processmuch. Processmuch allows Thinkmuch to enter in the dynamics and properties of the customer’s items as well as the items’ starting location and the desired ending location. Processmuch then takes into account Thinkmuch’s available resources, future weather conditions, the road and transportation systems that item might be transported in, etc. In fact, Processmuch processes all of the decisions that Thinkmuch does in both phases of planning. Using Processmuch the time to create the detailed plan (including the data entry and processing time) only takes one hour.

So does everyone at Thinkmuch see how Processmuch can help? Nope! Why? Because in the first phase, detailed planning is not currently done. The employees that do this phase see Processmuch as overkill and the employees who work on the second phase do not want to “waist time” entering in the dynamics and properties of the customer’s items. When the employees’ assessments of the technology find there way to the decision makers at Thinkmuch, the decision makers receive nothing but unfavorable reviews.

To prevent these situations, creators of innovative technology need to select their initial customers carefully and strategically. You need to select early adapters that understand the relationship their processes have with technology and the constraints that form them. Unfortunately, these early adapters do not usually have deep pockets and the non-early adapters (such as Thinkmuch), are usually the ones who have money to pay the higher prices. When selecting the early adapter you need to select ones that have visibility to the non-early adapters. The early adapter will prove the validity of your technology to the non-early adapter. The trick is finding the early adapter who has visibility to the premium paying customers.

Strategy in a SOA World – Three Strategic Principles

So your company has a niche product. You specialize in one aspect of a larger system. Your competitors are virtually sitting right there next you in the same system. But they have their niche and you have yours. You and your competitor are placed into a large Service-Oriented Architecture and both of your services provide utility to the end-user through your modular and accessible interfaces. To gain a competitive advantage, companies must follow three strategic principals: Do what is best for the entire system, Focus on the end-user, and Offer help to your competitors.

1. Do what is best for the entire system. Think of the system as your business ecosystem. To completely understand this analogy of a business ecosystem read The Keystone Advantage: What the New Dynamics of Business Ecosystems Mean for Strategy, Innovation, and Sustainability (Harvard Business School Press, 2004). Your competitors are in many ways your allies. Their niche adds value to the whole system just as yours does. Together your system competes against other systems and solutions. Before acting on any strategic moves, make sure the move is in best interest for your entire ecosystem.

2. Focus on the end-user. Make sure you are focused on the needs of the end-user. Your service may not interact directly with the end-user or it might be a very small piece of the system, but that does not mean you do not need to focus on the larger direct needs of the final customer. The more you are focused on the needs of the end-user, the better you will be at adding features to your services that end up being used by the customer. Many companies focus on extending their niche in any way possible. New features add to the utility of your component but if the end-user of the system has no need for those features your efforts have been wasted. You only can gain share of the system if the system’s end-user needs your added features.

3. Offer help to your competitors. Your competitors in the system are looking to add features to their own services. Position your services to add value to their future efforts. If your competitors can add value to their product they will utilize it. If utilizing a feature of your product is accessible (it is a SOA, so it should be) and it is cost effective, it will be very tempting for them to utilize your new feature. If your offer is tasty enough they will go for it. As long as you are able to constantly add value for their use, they will use your service over attempting to create that service themselves. At this point, your competitors are now more dependent on your services. At the same time you are expanding your share of the system.

SOAs are great for end-users because of their ability to trade in and out loosely coupled components. If your components are required by the end-user and/or required by competitors’ products, which are then required by the end-user, your components will have a strong foothold in the system. The stronger your foothold, the stronger your position will be among the players in the ecosystem. This long-term strategy will add market share and expand your competitive advantage.

Trends in Venture Capital Funding in the 1990s

Growing companies need to know the trends in the venture capital market to help them understand the conditions that lead to better chances of receiving financial capital. It is imperative for a business that is seeking venture capital funding to understanding where the venture capital market is heading in order to best position the business to receive funds. To do this, it is important to understand the historical trends in the market and to understand the current position of the market in order to know where the market might be heading.

As an entrepreneur, the report issued by the United States Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy in August of 1997 titled, “Trends in Venture Capital Funding in the 1990s” by Nicole Onorato, is of great interest. The data and the conclusions about the venture capital market in the 1990s will help to identify current and future trends of this market.

When first reading this report, it seems that in the early 1990’s the amount of venture capital money was increasing as the market matured and the number of VC firms decreased. A quote from the report states, “While the capital under management has increased, the number of firms managing it has decreased.” This statement infers that there is a negative correlation between the number of firms and the amount of money under venture capital management. Thus, as a potential seeker of venture capital, a market with less venture capital firms means there is a higher probability that there is more money under venture capital management, and therefore, a greater chance to gain funding.

Also stated in the report, “The fastest growing funding source in the 1990s has been corporations, which contributed 19 percent of funds in 1996 — a $920 million increase from 1990, when they contributed just 7 percent.” This statement could be a very powerful to and business leader looking for funding. As a seeker of funding, this could mean that corporations may be the cause for the increase in VC funding during the first half of the 1990s. It also can be inferred from this statement that corporations are contributing more and more to the birth of small businesses in the United States. What is economically good for corporations must be good for small businesses. A politician, who understands the need of an economy to create small innovative businesses, might think that corporations are increasingly contributing to venture capital funds. A politician may pass more legislation that favors large corporations in order to increase venture capital funding.

When first reading this report, these conclusions are agreeable. As we investigate further, using better sampling and statistical techniques than the author uses, these conclusions may not be so clear. In fact in one case, we will show that they are just plan wrong.

Questioning of the Sampling Techniques Used

Looking closer to the sampling techniques used in the section titled, “Trends In Venture Capital Funds”, one should begin to question Nicole Onorato’s conclusions.

First, Onorato uses two conflicting sources of data for her first point in this section. “In 1985, the professional venture capital community had $19.6 billion under management.
By 1995, the total had grown to $43.5 billion, a 122 percent increase.” The source of this data is from Coopers and Lybrand[1]. In the same paragraph, she states that the amount in 1995 was $37.15 Billion. This amount is from a different source, Horsley[2]. Did Onorato choose Coopers and Lybrand to inflate her point that the venture capital community had a significant increase in capital?

With the title of the report being, “Trends in Venture Capital Funding in the 1990s” it is also interesting that the author includes the 1980’s in her initial calculations. It would be helpful if Onorato gave a reason for why she went back to 1985 to demonstrate a trend in the 1990s.

“The fastest growing funding source in the 1990s has been corporations, which contributed 19 percent of funds in 1996 — a $920 million increase from 1990, when they contributed just 7 percent.” This is another conclusion that Onorato makes in this section. Why was 1996 now added to the date range? Before, in the same section, 1995 was the last date in the range. If the report’s purpose is to report the trends of the venture capital market then the sampling methods used should be explained and kept consistent for all samples.

Questioning of the Statistical Techniques Used

The report only uses percents of samples taken from each year to show the trends in the venture capital market. Additional information that would be useful to a consumer reading this report would be the presentation of charts and the use of other statistical tools aside from the percent increase between two arbitrarily chosen years.

For instance, a chart showing the money in venture capital management for the years between 1990 and 1995 could give the reader a visual understanding of the data given. Figure A (page 7) of this report is the chart that should have been given. There will be a further analysis of this chart.

Another chart that would be useful is a scatter plot between the number of firms and the amount of capital under venture capital management. Onorato infers a negative correlation between the number of firms and the amount of capital. A scatter plot would help make her point. The scatter plot that should have been given is in Figure B (page 8). There will be a further analysis of this chart as well.

A report discussing trends should include charts with trend lines. Instead of leaving it up to the reader to spot the trends that are concluded in this report, a trend line would be useful. A coefficient of correlation between the number of firms and the amount of capital under venture capital management would also help in justifying Onorato findings. As we analyze the data that should have been provided, Onorato’s finding should become clearer and justified, or will it?

Changes in Thinking

Newly constructed statistics based on the same data given in the report present a different set of conclusions than that given in the report. Figure A, Figure B, and the coefficient of correlation between the number of firms and the amount of capital under venture capital management have been calculated and presented. There is also a closer examination of the data presented in the chart from the report given in Figure C.

Figure A gives a graphical representation of the amount of capital in venture capital management. The chart also shows a trend line to help give a better description of the trend. Looking at Figure A, is this a significant increase in funding in the early 1990s? The trend line has a slope of 0.65. That’s only a 9.7% increase from 1990 to 1995. Given that inflation from 1990 to 1995 increased 18.6 percent[3], the amount of money in the 1990s at the time of the report has actually decreased. There is a strong difference in the 122 percent increase stated in the first sentence of the, “Trends In Venture Capital Funds” section of the report and the findings given in Figure A.

Figure A.

Figure B shows an even more drastic change in conclusions given in the report. As Figure B shows, the trend line of the number of firms and the amount of money under venture capital management is a positive slope. This shows a slight positive relationship between the two. Also, when the coefficient of correlation is calculated, the result is 0.226. This contradicts the author’s implication that the number of firms in the US are decreasing while the amount of capital is increasing. Our calculations show that there is a positive correlation between the number of firms and the amount of capital available for businesses needing funding. Thus, there is a greater probability that there will be a greater amount of capital under venture capital management when there are more venture capital firms.

Figure B

An analysis of Figure C shows even more inconsistencies in Onorato’s interpretations of the data. “The fastest growing funding source in the 1990s has been corporations, which contributed 19 percent of funds in 1996 — a $920 million increase from 1990, when they contributed just 7 percent.” But a look at the chart, in Figure C, shows an interesting bit of information.

Figure C

First, it should be noted that that the actual values of this crowded chart are not given and that the yellow bars displaying the amount each year that corporations commit to venture capital seem to blend into the background of this chart. A closer look at these bars actually shows that between 1990 and 1995 there is not a large growth trend in corporate contributions at all. In fact, 1990, 1991, and 1992 shows a decline in the amount committed by corporations. There is an increase in 1993 and 1994 but then in 1995 there is a sharp decline again. The actual trend line of this chart cannot even be calculated because the values for each bar are not given and the increments on the Y axis are by the $500 millions even though most of the bars do not even reach $500 million.

Onorato mentions an increase in the amount corporations were contributing. To make this point Onorato, for unknown reasons, added 1996 to the range of data. In 1996, corporations’ contributions increased to over one billion dollars. But this doesn’t show a trend. The year 1996 is an outlier, an unusual year. Adding this year to the chart gives a false impression to the data. Maybe this is why Onorato added 1996 to her calculations. Then, to conclude that corporations are the “fastest growing” based on a one year spurt is a great misunderstanding of the data.

Conclusion
After further analysis of the data presented in the report, conclusions from the report need to be reexamined. Consistent samples of the data, graphical charts, trend lines, and calculated coefficient of correlation should have been given in the initial report. When looking for trends in data as complex as the trends in financial markets, such as the venture capital market, detailed statistics should be used. Other useful calculations such as the variance in these trends, and the probability of events in the future, would have also been useful in a report such as this. With a report issued by the United States Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, one would expect there would be more scrutiny in the numbers and conclusions issued to the public.

[1] Coopers and Lybrand, Seventh Annual Economic Impact of Venture Capital Study.
[2] Horsley, Trends in Private Equity; National Venture Capital Association, annual reports, 1992–1995.

[3]U.S Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/cpi/

The Evolution of Apple

A great Harvard case about Apple Inc is available on http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5729.html for $6.95

The Apple case originally appeared in 1992 and has been rewritten 5 times since. "The company always looks a little different, yet many of the core issues that pose challenges for it remain constant," says Yoffie

From the executive summary

Executive Summary:
Apple's continuing development from computer maker to consumer electronics pioneer is rich material in a number of Harvard Business School classrooms. Professor David Yoffie discusses his latest case study of Apple, the 5th update in 14 years, which challenges students to think strategically about Apple's successes and failures in the past, and opportunities and challenges in the future. Key concepts include:

• Apple has an undeniable hit with the iPod, yet faces the question of whether the growth of that business and Apple overall can be sustained.

• Looking at Apple through the lens of the company's previous chief executives gives students insights into why Apple lost its way after Steve Jobs left the company.

• Student opinion of Apple tends to be excessively positive or excessively negative, depending on the company's current fortunes.

--

I suggest taking a look at it

A New Strategy for the Enterprise Software Industry (Post 2 of 4)

A SheeleyTech working paper

This is post two of a four post series.
1 A background of the enterprise software industry.

2. An examination of this industry using the analysis techniques in Clayton Christensen’s book Seeing What’s Next. I analyze the customers of this industry by categorizing them into undershot customers, overshot customers, and non-customers. This analysis determines which market segment offers the largest opportunity. I then look to see if the industry is signaling a change to target this market segment.

3. A competitive comparison determining which players are best to implement the strategy based on their resources, processes, and values.

4. My strategic road map for the company that is best fit to become the next leader in the enterprise software industry.


Customer Analysis
Undershot Customers are most likely very large corporations who will pay exorbitant amounts of money for slight improvements to their current enterprise systems. These customers can take advantage of economies of scale. The sizes of these businesses allow them to profit off of any improvement to the enterprise system.

Overshot Customers are small to medium size businesses that cannot adsorb big costs for every upgrade to the enterprise system. These companies tend not to pay for new improvements or the latest release. These companies have to anticipate big returns for any purchase or upgrade to the enterprise software.

Non-customers are small companies that tend to find cheaper alternatives that might not be the best solution but help get the job done. In these businesses you will find collections of excel applications that have been transformed into advanced accounting and management programs.

According to the US census bureau, in 2004, 99.7% of companies in the United States are small to medium size businesses[i]. If my overshot analysis is correct, then most businesses in the US are overshot customers. Anyone who works in an IT department that manages SAP or Peoplesoft enterprise systems, or knows someone who does, is aware that these systems are highly complex and upgrades are very costly. Integrating new features into these systems require IT departments to work weekends, cause downtime to the systems, and require an upfront purchase of a license and hardware for the new components.

According to Christensen’s model, if there are overshot customers in the industry then low-end disruptive innovations, displacing innovations, and downward migration of required skills will be occurring.

Looking at the software industry, there should be signals that these trends are emerging. We will look at the OnDemand business model as a low-end disruptive innovation, niche CRM and customer contact solutions as displacing innovations, and the emergence of Web Services and webapps as a downward migration of required skills.

The OnDemand Business Model is one that allows customers to use the software under a variety of payment plans. Companies with the business model offer solutions that do not require upfront costs for new hardware or software installations. The software is priced at different levels that allow their customers to pick the plan based on the level of usage required. These solutions give small and midsized businesses cheaper solutions than purchasing more expensive licenses and new hardware.

Niche CRM and Customer Contact Solutions are just a few displacing innovations that have emerged. Displacing innovations take aim at a specific feature of an existing product line. Solutions that target customer relationship management and customer contact campaigns are just a few of the areas where new players are sharpening their expertise. Their customers do not want to pay for an entire enterprise system or have already purchased one but are willing to pay for specialized features particularly needed for their industry.

Web Services and Webapps are examples of downward migration of required skills.
Web services are a means to define and expose application interfaces. Web services allow for easy upgrades and integrations of existing system. Web services are interfaces that define and verify integrated systems. Also, Web services allow enterprise systems to be loosely coupled, so that each component of the system is less dependent on the other components. This reduces the experience needed by IT departments to maintain and integrate new components into the systems and reduces the downtime required for most integration efforts. This also allows niche solutions to be created without complete knowledge of the other enterprise systems in their customers’ existing systems.

Webapps are applications that are accessed over the internet. These applications require now hardware, downloads, or installations. They are practically a webpage that looks and feels like an application. New enterprise solutions are emerging that are exclusively webapps. These solutions do not require an IT department or even a highly technical employee to do the setup.

These signals and trends are clear signs that the enterprise software industry is changing and is refocusing on the overshot customers who make up most of the business market. Next, I will analyze the competitive battles and determine which players are preparing to emerge as the next enterprise software leader.

[i] Small business is usually defined as under 100 employees and medium size businesses are usually defined as companies with 100 to 500 employees

A New Strategy for the Enterprise Software Industry (Post 1 of 4)

A SheeleyTech working paper

This is post one of a four post series.
1 A background of the enterprise software industry.

2. An examination of this industry using the analysis techniques in Clayton Christensen’s book Seeing What’s Next. I analyze the customers of this industry by categorizing them into undershot customers, overshot customers, and non-customers. This analysis determines which market segment offers the largest opportunity. I then look to see if the industry is signaling a change to target this market segment.

3. A competitive comparison determining which players are best to implement the strategy based on their resources, processes, and values.

4. My strategic road map for the company that is best fit to become the next leader in the enterprise software industry.


Background
In the 1970s, IBM and other software companies created the first widely used enterprise software applications. This disruptive technology allowed companies to digitally manage the business’ payroll and financial accounting. These systems were host-based. Host-based architectures perform all functions of the system on one machine. The storage of data (financials, and employee information), the processing of the data, and the presentation to the user are run on one mainframe.

Since this time, a series of sustaining innovations has occurred. Functions that address, human resource departments, customer relationship management, supply chain management, inventory management were added to enterprise software systems in order to meet the demands of the current market. The enterprise systems also changed into client-server architectures to increase the accessibility of the systems and to take advantage of processor power of multiple machines. These systems are a collection of dedicated database machines and dedicated processing machines. Users access these systems through client applications on their local PCs, many times through a web browser. These systems became widely popular and large enterprise companies such as SAP and Oracle capitalized on their demand.

In the past few years, new types of enterprise systems are emerging. Buzzwords such as OnDemand, Saas (Software as a Service), SOA (Service-Oriented Architectures), and webapp (web application) are used to describe these new types of systems. Companies like Salesforce.com, SoundBite Communications, WebEx, and RightNow Technologies Inc. are the new players in this field. These systems do not require the customer to host software on their networks. There is no IT department required to maintain the systems and many of these applications use an onDemand billing model. These models bill the customer each time the system is used or allow for multiple pricing plans rather than purchasing a license or other expensive one-time charges.

Radio can still do what google and itunes can't

Last night I listened to the both the director and general manger of sales for WFNX Radio in Boston (http://fnxradio.com/1/home.asp). They were talking to my ebusiness strategy class at Bentley College. They talked about the radio industry and challenges they face in this new internet world we live in. I found it interesting to hear that they didn’t see the iPod or online advertising (Google, Yahoo!, etc.) as a threat to their business. They are sales guys so my first reaction was, oh yeah right. But the more I think of the points they made, the more I think the terrestrial radio industry does have a chance of survival.

Their argument was that people listen to terrestrial radio because of the connection to community, and the local customization that they offer. The example they gave was the following. When you only listened to downloaded music, you lose touch with what is going on in the local news, music, and sports scene. You become disconnected with the constant real-time stream of up-to-date information. They noted that people put radio station bumper stickers on their cars of because people identify with local radio stations. You don’t often see people with a New York Time or Google bumper sticker.

I think they might have a point but I feel the radio industry is going to have to move much faster and adapt new technologies that will keep them ahead or equal with their competitors. If community and local customization are their key advantages, then they need to capitalize on these points.

Right now when I listen to a radio program I picture a group of DJs or talk hosts sitting in a room with microphone talking. I think they need to step out of their stations and into more locations. They need to integrate more with the local community and host their shows in traffic during rush hour, or at the local mall. They do this now, but they need make it less of a special event and make it an every day thing. Google can’t pull up in traffic next to its audience or visit the local Dunkin Donuts, but local radio can.

Take the local Fox news station here in Boston http://www.myfoxboston.com/myfox/pages/InsideFox/GoodDay?pageId=5.2
Their morning program does these promotions called Zip Trips. Every Friday they do their morning show from a new town. They promote the town all week and give new facts about it. When that Friday morning comes along, people from all over the town are at the broadcast crowding the backgrounds of the cameras.

Listeners want to feel connected, and they want to feel that they belong to something. If terrestrial radio can capitalize on the personal local community aspect of their business, then they do have a chance. Online advertisers are constantly looking for ways of focusing ads to specific customers. But if radio can keep their devoted communities of followers, then advertisers will continue to tap into these valuable markets.

Web2.0 and Mortar

We all know the story of the dot-com boom and bubble. Ecommerce sites were popping up with hopes of becoming successful businesses. The hype grew so big that people were predicting the end of malls and regular retail stores. Now that the hype has come and gone and regular retail still remains. Now most businesses have an online and a store presence or also known as “click and mortar”. Turns out, having both a store and an eCommerce site is the best strategy in retail.

Now we have web2.0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web2.0). I guess web1.0 was the checkout feature and now web2.0 is the wiki, social networking, customization, blogs, and more. Websites are now appearing that are web2.0 businesses. Myspace, wikipedia, igoogle and other sites are set to be the next thing. These technologies are not necessarily profitable but companies are paying big money to buy them up for fear of missing the web2.0 boat (the purchases of friendster and youtube come to mind). But what if the conclusion of web1.0 turns out to be the proper conclusion of web2.0? What if the profitable outcome of these web2.0 business models is not just to create a website but to incorporate the features of web2.0 into a physical store. We can call it “web2.0 and mortar” or “wiki and mortar”.

Could web2.0 move to the real world? Could the experience I have when I walk into Wal-Mart be different for me that for you? Could the isle next to the milk be coffee for me but cereal for my wife? Probably not. But I can see large communities of people change the how a store operates or what it sells? a wikistore? Stores are constantly doing market research to find out what their customers want. Why not just let them define it for the store. Customers logon to the stores website and edit the wiki-inventory and add and remove new items.

Or what if you can network with other customers in the store? Would the social networks that myspace creates be created for a brick and mortar store? If a community forms around your store are they more likely to buy? Will they feel like it is their store? (i.e. a more loyal customer base.) Just like communities and social groups helped make Ebay what it is today, could the same happen for the local grocery store or for the local pizza shop? Are we as consumers on the verge of having more control or say in what we buy and what services are offered to us? Will web2.0 become a profitable business model for Brick stores? I think the answer to this will be if the large collective knowledge of customers make companies more profitable than the a few very smart executives. I think we are not far away from finding out.