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Competing for Market Share--Maybe

And speaking of pricing, Geoff Moore discusses when it makes sense to make pricing sacrifices in pursuit of market share--and when it doesn't.

Competing for market share drives some of the best--and some of the worst--management decisions in business. Companies are particularly susceptible to going astray at the end of the quarter when they seek to use market share impact to justify horrendous deals--that is, deals that sell out all future quarters in order to make the current one. Here are some guidelines to help you stay on the straight and narrow.

Read Competing for Market Share--Maybe for guidelines on pricing and strategy.

Camels and Rubber Duckies

Pricing is a mysterious thing. We talk about pricing in Practical Product Management and find that almost everyone has a point of view and a recent challenge with pricing. "Do I charge a lot or not?" "Should I do a site license?" "How about different prices by segment?"

Joel Spolsky explores the conundrum of pricing:

"You've just released your latest photo-organizing software. Through some mechanism which will be left as an exercise to the reader, you've managed to actually let people know about it. Maybe you have a popular blog or something. Maybe Walt Mossberg wrote a rave review in the Wall Street Journal. One of the biggest questions you're going to be asking now is, 'How much should I charge for my software?' "

Read Joel's strategies for pricing in Camels and Rubber Duckies.

ack/nak: discussion: the tao of pricing

from a new product marketing blog called ACK/NAK:

"One of the wonderful things about being a product marketing guy is being able to get my hands dirty with pricing. Especially this time of year, when the tao of pricing is accompanied by the te of discounting. Te - which I'll interpret here as signifying 'virtue' - is a principle very different than Tao - which I'll interpret here as signifying 'the way'.

I'm thinking about this because I just got the following request from sales: 'a very important customer (ed: they're all very important, but let's not digress) has asked for a discount on product x amounting to our 'best price' for this particular product, even though they're not buying at the volume required to get this 'best price'.'"

Read more in ack/nak: discussion: the tao of pricing.

Pricing for Software Product Managers

Pricing has far reaching effects beyond the cost of the product. Pricing is just as much a positioning statement as a definition of the cost to buy. Price defines the entry threshold: who your buyers are and their sensitivities, which competitors you will encounter, who you will be negotiating with and what the customers' expectations will be. Good pricing will remove the price issue from being an obstacle to a sale. Pricing is also used as a weapon to fight the competition as well as gray markets. Read more in Pricing for Software Product Managers.

Pricing for Software Product Managers

Daniel Shefer writes, "Pricing has far reaching effects beyond the cost of the product. Pricing is just as much a positioning statement as a definition of the cost to buy. Pricing defines the entry threshold: who your buyers are and their sensitivities, which competitors you will encounter, who you will be negotiating when selling the product and what the customers' expectations will be. " Read Daniel's comprehensive article on Pricing for Software Product Managers.