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Different Dog Days
by Paul McGoldrick
July and August have always been slower months in our industry. Summer vacations and public holidays at the beginning and end of the period all contribute to things being quieter. In the same way our web traffic slows a little; but, unusually, in the month of August 2009, although our overall number of unique visitors fell a little, those visitors went to more ZONEs than usual, increasing our visitor traffic literally across the board.
Something else also slows down during the summer: product releases. I have always wondered whether this is because of some perception that the press will not be around to take notice? (I don’t know if that is even true.) Or is it because the vendors find it much more difficult to get sample product into the right hands? Or perhaps their own staff vacations make it difficult to coordinate releases?
Whichever it is, there is, this year, something else happening – or not happening – in the companies I cover. They are not, save one, talking of their September product plans; products we all know must be on their way.
It is almost like they are all waiting for the others to make their first moves…
When you are one of a group of guys who haven’t played poker in a while, but who is actually quite good at the game itself, there is always a hesitation about putting yourself forward. You avoid hands that are not immediately super good with the first cards you get dealt. You play the hands where you are getting aces and picture cards in the first round until you get your hand in, so to speak. The other players are doing the same and unless you have one really bold player around the table the game can be intensely boring for the first hour.
When the ante increases to a level where it is becoming significant, and not chips you want to throw away, is when the play starts to get going and all the players get into the majority of the hands. And the game gets really interesting and technically rewarding. Then one player goes all-in and the game moves into its end phase. From that point on most wins from a card turn come from blind luck, not skill.
I think the industry is playing its own poker game. And here, at the beginning of September – but before Labor Day – they haven’t got a feel for the way the game is going to play out. They don’t know the skill levels of the other players in a market most of them have not been in before. Where do you invest your people and money for the selling season; which end products are consumers going to turn positive about in the coming December holidays? Which industries are going to recover first, if any? Which OEM designs for development in 2010 are going to need modifications on existing products to give extra hooks, modified specifications, different testing limits.
Standard play. But there need to be some bold players out there who have that most unbusiness-like "gut feeling" about what is coming, what is going to happen, and where the profits will be. Remember All The President’s Men: “Follow the money.”
I’ll be happily following the guys who go all in and take the next big pot.
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