Re: Eng. v. Mktg.

[Stephen Forrest <forrest -at- SMTP -dot- SHIMADZU -dot- COM>]

> Date:          Thu, 24 Apr 1997 09:51:00 -0700
> From:          "Wilcox, John (Contractor)" <wilcoxj -at- WDNI -dot- COM>
> Subject:       Eng. v. Mktg. (was Re: Job Posting: Technical Marketing Writer)

> Melonie Holliman wrote:
> >It did get me thinking about the marketing vs. engineering
> >thing, though. Does anyone else feel pulled between the
> >two? I feel like there is a war going on in my company.
> >Is this normal for the software development process?
>
> Diane Burke wrote:
> >Absolutely! My experience is that Marketing's focus is "What
> >does the user need/want?" while Engineering's focus is
> >"What can we provide?".
>
> Hmm.  Interesting.  I'd have to disagree.  Seems to me that
> Engineering's focus is more like what you say Marketing's is, while
> Marketing's is more like "What can we make the user believe even if
> it's not true?"   I would also compare them by saying that
> Engineering deals in facts while Marketing deals in deception.

In my experience, good engineers want to produce the coolest, most
useful, most feature-packed thing they can, while marketing wants
1) one feature to meet each one of their competitors' selling points,
whether it works well or not, and 2) to be able to sell the product
for as high a price as possible while keeping the cost down as much
as possible.

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