Ulrich Schumacher, who was the first CEO of Infineon Technologies when it spun out of Siemens, tells an amusing yarn of his days as a marketing guy at Siemens Semiconductors.
In those days, within Siemens, as in most European companies, there were rigid barriers between different activities inside the same company, an unbending bureaucracy and a strict hierarchy.
Product development was pretty near top of the tree; marketing was pretty well bottom.
"I had a customer where I was the sole source," recalls Schumacher, "and my customer gave me 18 months notice that he needed a 4 Mb X 16 DRAM for his printer. I went to my development apartment and said: 'I need a 4Mb X 16'."
"They said: "Wait we'll develop a 4Mb X 8, and after that we'll develop a 4Mb X 16'. I said: ' I have no customers for a 4 Mb X 8. None of my customers want a 4Mb X 8, the only company who want a 4Mb X 8 is Apple, but I have many customers who would use a 4Mb X 16'."
"So I went to the business division manager who said: 'We will follow the recommendation of the development apartment and develop a 4Mb X 8'."
"Well, after we'd developed a 4Mb X 8, Apple slowed down, and I lost my customer for a 4Mbt X 16. So the damage was absolutely huge."
Subscribe to this blog's feed