Niche Software Steals Microsoft's Thunder

Mar 21
21:22

2005

Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards

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When you think of software and personal computers (PCs),you think Microsoft.

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The global software giant dominates the PC market in bothpenetration and pocketbook.

It seems you can't go a single day without seeing at leastone news story and several advertisements for Microsoft ora Microsoft product.

But that doesn't mean Microsoft dominates in every cornerof the market; in fact,Niche Software Steals Microsoft's Thunder Articles as the software behemoth getsbigger, numerous niche software offerings spring up to fillin the gaps left in Microsoft's wake.

As you'll see, a couple of these niche software programshave managed to either beat Microsoft to the punch, or evensteal market share away from the seemingly invinciblecompany.

FeedDemon

FeedDemon software ($29.95) enables you to subscribe to andread RSS Feeds (Real Simple Syndication).

RSS has emerged as the preferred way to share news andother content with subscribers across the Internet withoutthe use of email.

The advantage to subscribers: as news, blogs, or othercontent updates somewhere online, subscribers receivevirtually instant notification just by opening up theirreader.

This represents a huge time savings since subscribers canreceive updates without surfing individual sites to chasedown stories or wading through piles of spam to find the content they actually want.

The advantage to publishers: no worrying about whetheremail notifications, news releases, or blog updates made itpast the spam filters or unreliable mail servers.

Though many free RSS reader software packages exist (justdo a search on Google.com for "free rss reader"), FeedDemonoffers an unmatched suite of tools that enable serious RSSsubscribers the power and flexibility to mix and matchfeeds, including the new "POD Casting" craze where contentproviders syndicate audio content (MP3) over the web.

Available from www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/, FeedDemon setsthe standard for RSS readers in a market that Microsoft hasyet to even address with any of its software products.

I'll make a daring prediction here: watch for Microsoft oranother large player to purchase FeedDemon rather than tryto reinvent the wheel and build a product brand themselves.

FireFox Web Browser

Security problems always seem to plague the MicrosoftInternet Explorer (IE) Web browser.

In fact, last year the problem got so bad, it forcedMicrosoft to release one of the largest free softwareupgrades (Service Pack 2) in the history of computing.

According to both OneStat.com and Webside Story, two of theWeb's leading Web analytics companies, Microsoft's IEmarket share has dipped below 90%.

See actual stats from WebSide Story Here: http://www.websidestory.com/services-solutions/datainsights/spotlight.html

In response to serious security threats to InternetExplorer, an upstart browser named FireFox from Mozilla.orgtook off like a rocket ship in late 2004.

Available free from www.Mozilla.org, FireFox offers notonly a full-featured Web browser without the securityproblems, but also a number of features not available onInternet Explorer.

Probably the most popular feature Firefox offers over IE is"Tabbed Browsing," which enables you to open multiple Webpages without opening multiple windows.

Firefox also limits harmful Active-X controls and pop-upwindows.

Firefox tends towards a less forgiving attitude on HTMLcoding and may display some Web pages awkwardly, where IEdisplays most pages as the designer intended.

Despite this, Firefox makes an excellent browser andMicrosoft should take heed that market dominance doesn'tlast forever once consumers see a viable alternative.

And the lesson in all of this for all you would-beentrepreneurs out there with the next great idea?

It doesn't matter how big or small your organization, italways comes back to a simple formula: Meet the needs andsolve the problems of a specific niche audience better thanthe next guy and you'll be the winner!

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