I was doing some long overdue filing this morning and came across the following letter….a response to a misguided mass mailer that inadvertently invited Mr Al Fayed of Harrods to a seminar in London on the subject of (eek!) open source software…

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Just unpacked my new Apple MacBook Pro.

A great example of a whole product: the hardware, operating system, bundled applications (about 30), utilities, web & phone support, set-up wizards, web-based services (called .mac) all pre-installed, integrated and ready for action.

The battery was even fully charged when it arrived. Apple are masters of the ‘unveiling dance’. They understand that people get excited about buying new kit and they don’t want to squander that enthusiasm with hours of frustration. Instead, they turn it into brand evangelism (as exhibited in literally millions of blog posts like this one).

Too many B2B tech products forget about the whole product and just flog the base technology underneath it all. Often, the whole product is there, ready to be marketed, but it’s ignored.

Buyers don’t just want functionality, they want reassurance that it’s going to work.

With it’s tiny market share, Apple has been forced to create the critical parts of the Mac ecosystem itself. This is a massive burden, but turns into an advantage when it comes to delivering whole, integrated products.

Any tech marketer can steal a page from this book. And a bit of the showmanship and flair wouldn’t hurt either (how’s your unveiling dance?).