Early Adopters and the Early Majority

Early Adopters and the Early Majority are both parts of the same general customer segment—that of the clients who want to get in on the earliest phases of Itanium adoption. (See Figure 5-1, above.) What separates an Early Adopter from an Early Majority? It stems from the nature of the problem facing the user. As a general rule, Early Adopters fit the following profile:

• Early adopters are doing the experiments that require Itanium to be pushed to its full potential.

• Early Adopters are comprised of people who want or need to get ahead of the technology curve.

• Early adopters have an intensive, immediate need for a level of computing power that is a full magnitude above what they have available.

• Early Adopters normally include science and research laboratories that work with highly complex mathematical models.

Because an Early Adopter's problems are so complex and computer intensive they just live with the fact that it can take a week or even a month to run a single problem! If you're in such an unenviable position, then anyone who claims to have something that cuts the wait time down to a week or a day is nothing short of a godsend. That's an amazing performance gain that can be received in no other way.

What's more, if the performance gain can be had for a reasonable price, it's icing on the cake. Early Adopters, by their very nature, will go through whatever it takes to adopt the technology because of the extreme need.

Users in Early Majority are technically in the same market segment. However, there's a subtle but immediately discernable difference between the two groups. Early Majority users tend to follow the profile outlined below:

• They include government agencies and laboratories running theoretical models.

• A slightly lower priority is placed on performance and precision, if only because the nature of the problems can be handled moderately well on existing equipment.

• A fifty to one hundred percent gain in performance is considered extremely valuable, especially if it can be done without a major price gain.

In essence, problems faced by customers in the Early Majority are not so critical that they're jumping at any solution immediately. Itanium power is clearly desired, but not to the degree that they need to be at the front of the line with the Early Adopters.