Every developer's worst nightmare?


You've spent hours and hours toiling over what, in your opinion, is the greatest idea ever. The concept you've come up with is so innovative that you just know that no-one else has thought of it, nor are they likely to. And then, while casually browsing the various 'blogs you read daily, you see not one but two links to the same application, about to be released. Your heart races, your palms get sweaty - surely this can't be the same idea as you had. You follow the links and find, to your horror, that not only is the name the same, the idea is the same and - worst of all - they've got some even better ideas than you had! So that's it, your great idea is no longer original or innovative - someone beat you to the punch. Now what do you do?

This is the situation I find myself in at the moment. After six months of design and research I've discovered that another company has beaten me to market with an almost identical product with (and this is just an almost unbelievable coincidence) exactly the same name. So now I find myself in a situation where I'm not sure what to do. As I see it there are a few options:

1. carry on regardless
2. change the name (to avoid any nasty legal issues) and carry on regardless
3. start thinking up a new idea to develop
4. give up the whole thing and become a turnip farmer

While option 4 is tempting (although I'm not that fond of turnips) I think the best option is number 3. Sure I could simply change the name and carry on as before, after all, the chances of our applications being identical is pretty slim - but I'm trying to be a good development citizen in a reasonably small marketplace. While it's annoying to find out that someone has beaten me to the punch, it's not too surprising really. Despite what we, as developers, think, rarely are our ideas so innovative and radical to have not been thought of by someone else at some point.

The good thing to have come out of all of this is that it's giving me a chance to see how another company does trying to sell an idea that I (also) had. It's kind of like fantasy software development and marketing - thankfully I've not committed much beyond my time to the project, so walking away from it isn't impossible.

Now think about this situation from the point of view of a big software company like Microsoft. They could come up with the same idea as a small ISV but take a year longer to get it to market (because of internal resource issues, testing, marketing, etc.) When they do finally bring the product to market it's likely to be better polished than the ISV offering, purely because the ISV has very limited resources and a need to get their product to market so it can make them some money - Microsoft doesn't have these same pressures (sure it has some of them, but not all of them and not of the same intensity that a small ISV will experience). When Microsoft does finally launch their version of application X what is the reaction? Most people will simply dismiss it as Microsoft being plagiarists or Microsoft muscling in on someone else's market. The simple fact is, however, that two companies had the same idea and both decided to develop it. The fact that the Microsoft offering will start off looking better doesn't necessarily mean that Microsoft will automatically win out in the marketplace - don't forget that the ISV has a year lead in the marketplace. That's a very valuable resource that simply can't be bought. A year lead will give you user feedback, bug testing, feature requests and exposure.

So these are the reasons that I've decided to shelve my product plans and offer my best wishes to Near-Time with their Flow product. As soon as it's available I'll be sure to get a copy and see how similar our ideas were and whether I'm making, now, the right decision.

Posted: Thu - April 22, 2004 at 05:34 PM        

©