The features

To increase the number of items sold companies often try to pack more and more features into their products.

There are two things they often forget during feature-packing:

• The more complex a system the easier to create confusion and problems.
• If the focus is not kept main original purpose then the item may loose it and hence people are not interested any more.

I lately stumbled upon a digital photo frame with e-mail-feature included. What? - Can the digital photo frame now also receive viruses? - Do I have to update it for saving it from being hacked? Will somebody be able to use it as a relay e-mail server?

I already run hot, when my mobile phone takes about 30 seconds to send an SMS message - that was sent much faster on my older models. Not enough, I also had memory leaks so I had to disable some feature. Further it is still that about once a week it needs a reboot - just as a Windows Server (although there is no Windows on that phone).

Although I can write e-mails also with this phone it is slow, few memory, tiny screen to view and typing time is also longer than on a normal keyboard. Once I tried to correct a Word document while on the way. I should have waited until I am again in front of a real computer and read a book in the meantime...

The all-in-one product is a myth. Products that can much usually can do everything a little bit but nothing really good.

So I recommend that you

• carefully think, what are your needs,
• prioritize your needs and
  
• get a few, reliable products or devices that fit your needs.

The features or functionality you need most needs to be covered by a reliable product.

Remember that for complex things usually more maintenance time and work is required. So beware of the "Total cost of Ownership".

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