The Pointed End of the Spork » The Miniprise… part 2.

No such thing as an original idea, huh. I did some more research in to the Miniprise, and I found that a small (practically unknown!!!) company called Cisco segments the SMB market in the same way.

Here’s an excerpt from CRN Magazine back in 2004.

“Cisco breaks the market into four tiers: enterprise adopters, or small businesses that behave like enterprises; cutting-edge adopters that value technology and use it as a strategic advantage; value-price adopters that use technology but are driven by price; and “laggers,” companies that adopt technology late in the cycle because they have to remain competitive. “

Rumor has it that Cisco had a hard time with the SMB market until they adopted this segmentation model. Their idea of “enterprise adopters” is exactly what I consider the Miniprise customer.

The only thing better than having a “new” idea about a market is finding out that a multi-billion dollar company with non-competing products is already making good money from it.

Although I personally think Miniprise is a bit catchier than “enterprise adopter”