Is it possible for a product to be too good? I am wondering if that may be so. It used to be a goal to create a product that had a long lifetime. The value was in the quality and longevity. Today it seems vendors would wish their products were not so good. Here are a few examples:
Windows XP was a very powerful and stable operating system. If Microsoft had included the security features built into its successors XP would still be a viable more light weight competitor. I’m not saying it is the best operating system ever. I am saying that it was a fantastic version of Windows.
The Nintendo Wii is a solid platform. Recently Nintendo discontinued internet gaming and some of the internet features on this platform. My guess is because they want you to purchase the newer WiiU.
The Samsung Galaxy S III Android phone is an awesome platform. They continue to have improvements in Android making the phone a fantastic platform. However, Samsung has already released the Galaxy 4 and Galaxy 5 models. There is a growing market for the Galaxy 3 phones on EBay because they are a great product and still perform very nicely.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has continues to be a strong workhorse. Only those needing the few new features or optimizations in the newer SQL Server versions targeted for data warehousing find any value in upgrading. That isn’t to say that SQL Server 2012 isn’t a great product. But for a basic relational database there aren’t a lot of compelling reasons to upgrade.
So vendors have to drop support in order to move on because they created a great product. So let me congratulate those companies achieving the status of “competing with themselves” by simply being too good.
Cheers,
Ben