Anytime someone says we need a simpler version of the product to go to market in the SMB space and lets name it” Product Name Express”, you should run. When you do this, you are falling into what Ries and Trout refer to as the line extension trap. The word express is a tell-tale sign of line extension. It rarely works in any industry including software. Don’t take my word for it, read Chapter 12 of Positioning.

If you do introduce an “express” product in enterprise software, then you can look forward to the following 5 things:

  1. The sales force will be totally confused as to what makes the products different. Customers and analysts will be doubly lost.
  2. There will be lots of internal meetings trying to decide exactly what features should be in what product.
  3. The market will demand that the express product include the most important features already in the core product. This will lead to more #2.
  4. The express product will win deals where customers “should have” bought the core product. This will lead to more of #2.
  5. After some period of time the express product will ultimately be folded back into the core product.

Don’t worry though, you will be in good company as virtually every software company eventually falls into this trap: Weblogic Express, Tivoli Express, Oracle Express, etc …