Notice all of this is in the future. As difficult as planning is, you need accurate tools to improve the fidelity of your planning. If the tools are inaccurate, the planning becomes useless. All this applies to the photographer by enabling him to realize long term goals, to fulfill a vision. By being confident of a suppliers intention, the photographer can husband his resources as needed. Knowing down the road a new widget of a certain capability will be introduced, the photographer can delay spending money on other things to have the money ready down the road when the widget is introduced. I think you get the idea.
Let me go a step further on the concept of "do not confuse your customers." Do not send them a red herring. A confusing and misinformed marketing strategy will only disillusion customers and send them to your competitors--see my first paragraph. If you allude to your customers the good ship Nikon is going in one direction and out of the blue a new dramatically different path gets set, frustration will seep in. Most customers do not have faith. Few companies enjoy cult followings--Apple Computer is one of the few. Therefore, most companies need to re-affirm the faith. They need a picture that's easy to follow and periodic follow-ups to re-affirm where things are going. Then when surprises happen, aggressive campaigns need to be waged to acknowledge the problems, take responsibility, and reaffirm the company is still great. I think most reasonable people know no one is perfect. So, if a mistake is made and it's properly explained, most people will forgive and forget.
Notice, I'm not talking anything about the inners of products. I'm not talking about specific technical details of unreleased cameras. I'm talking about telling the customer the very basics of how you are going to support him and some sort of path he may hope to be on.
Make the best products possible
This does not mean you need to counter every technology development introduced by your competitors. This only means you need to make the best products possible and fill the needs of your most important customers. For example, back in the film days there were always larger format cameras than those produced by Nikon. No one really said boo to the idea Nikon wasn't developing a medium format camera to counter the Mamyia's, Pentax's, and Bronica's back in the day. Nikon should and did continue to develop the best possible cameras for its primary customers and was very fruitful. Nothing was really lost by Nikon by not fielding a 645 style camera. There wasn't a need. Someone else was filling that niche while Nikon continued to develop and introduce products for its most important customers. Fast forward to today. If you read the message boards, you'd think Nikon was on the ropes for not introducing a counter to Canon's 1Ds full-framed digital SLR. While to me personally a full-framed camera would fit nicely in my arsenal of equipment, I am not pinning for that capability. I am not missing any major shots by not having that kind of camera. In fact, when I transitioned from film to digital, I went from the F5 to the D1h simply because the camera's frame-rate was a better match to my style of photography while fulfilling my needs in the digital darkroom. Okay, the D1h's 2.74mp's are a bit small for those that make large prints from their 35mm film which is a very good reason to develop higher density sensors. But, is there a need for 35mm style photographers to shoot full-framed when you can match their wide-angle needs using other technology? No, there isn't. Large sensor capability in a 35mm body simply isn't as high a priority as making better and better sensors in general. With the D2h, you're on your way with better products but the sensor needs some work. Whether true or not, the D2h's sensor has a preception of trouble. It has limits that need to be eliminated and your customers need to know you care enough to fix the things that don't work right--see earlier discussions. Your customers need to know you care enough to take their money with the promise you'll stand by the products that possess your moniker.
Let's change direction a little. I already mentioned something about customer service and not confusing your customer, taking care of them when your products perform less than advertised is a different cut at the same philosophy. Make the best products possible and make sure your customers know you're committed to keeping them that way.
