Quicklet on Geoffrey A. Moore's Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High Tech Products to Mainstream Customers

Rather than making your product easier to sell, correct positioning makes your product easier to buy.

Crossing the chasm requires a single target beachhead segment that already has budgeted dollars for your solution. That money may well be allocated to a competitor’s inferior product, but it must exist or you will be wasting your time; when crossing the chasm, time is critical.

Positioning shapes not only a buyer’s final selection, it affects the way the buyer evaluates his alternatives in making that choice.

direct sales is the optimal channel for high tech

Next we must determine how this channel will fit into our whole product mix

we must seek a channel that already has or is in a position to create a relationship with our target customer

OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers):

the VAR are typically localized companies which specialize in a particular technology or a particular vertical market. They provide product bundled with installation, configuration, training, and maintenance.

Two-tier Value added reselling

They fulfill both the wholesale and retail functions in a single entity