The Killer Feature

The hunt for the killer feature is always on. Especially in mature product categories every company is looking for an edge for their new and improved version.

The killer feature for TVs is picture quality, according to Chris Moseley, a Samsung product manager:

TVs are ultimately about picture quality. Ultimately. How smart they are…great, but let’s face it that’s a secondary consideration. The ultimate is about picture quality and there is no way that anyone, new or old, can come along this year or next year and beat us on picture quality.

Samsung sits comfortably on top of the TV market and is in control of the supply chain for parts that control picture quality. New players will have a hard time beating them at their own game, picture quality:

We’ve not seen what they’ve done but what we can say is that they don’t have 10,000 people in R&D in the vision category.

With they he refers to Apple, who are expected to launch an HDTV, later this year. 

And Moseley is again right. Apple doesn't have 10,000 researchers dedicated to making TVs better.

Of course it wouldn't make sense for a senior leader to shit his pants when a competitor announces a new product. But if I were Samsung I would expect a flank attack from Apple. Own the conversation and make it about your killer feature. 

Focus on something the 10,000 researchers of your competitor didn't care about.

Something which Steve Ballmer also found out the hard way.