But each of its 134 stores also includes a repair shop, training classrooms and a delivery van with a crew to install customer purchases.
He argued the answer for growth was a sheer land-grab of already installed customers who would pay ongoing maintenance and upgrade fees until seemingly the end of time.
"Companies are buying technology and installed customer bases to fuel their growth," said Doug Burke, managing director of Montgomery & Company, an investment firm in Santa Monica, Calif.
In addition, the complexities of installing customer management systems, which can take several years and tens of millions of dollars to complete, have created a lucrative market for consulting firms.
We find that both a firm's installed customer base and the level of market saturation play a role in shaping firms' innovative pricing strategies, in terms of the number and characteristics of the new tariff plans.
Compaq and HP's installed customer base "is fair game for IBM and Sun," says Jon Powers, chief executive of Sector 7, an Austin, Texas-based computer consulting firm that has worked with such organizations as Blockbuster and the City of New York.
Once installed, customer-service agents can save the personal data provided by Next Caller with just a click, copying it to their own local database.
Once they install equipment, customers are stuck with you for years.
By measuring install metrics, customers are able to see which of their marketing efforts are really paying off.
The service is "complex to install on customer sites, costly to distribute by satellite and the audiences are very modest, making it difficult to justify the continued level of investment," Mr. Duffield said.
