《Barco Project Systems》.pdf

For the exclusive use of C. Huang 9-591-133 R E V : M A Y 9 , 2 0 0 2 R O W L A N D T . M O R I A R T Y Barco Projection Systems (A): Worldwide Niche Marketing On Saturday morning, September 23, 1989, Erik Dejonghe, Frans Claerbout, and Bernard Dursin were drafting a crucial presentation that Dejonghe was scheduled to make to the Barco N.V. board of directors on Monday. As senior vice president and chief operating officer (COO) of Barco N.V., with responsibility for Barco’s Projection Systems Division (BPS), Dejonghe had to respond to a competitor’s recent move that threatened the heart of the division’s sales. Claerbout, the general manager of BPS, and Dursin, in charge of managing Barco’s distribution subsidiaries and coordinating worldwide marketing of projectors, had both worked closely with Dejonghe to formulate the company’s options. One month earlier, the Sony Corporation surprised BPS and the rest of the industry by unveiling its 1270 “superdata” projector at the Siggraph trade show in Boston. At Siggraph, Sony’s product seized first place as the industry’s highest-performing projector from BPS’s BG400. More damaging, the 1270 was rumored to be priced 20% to 40% below the established market price in its performance class. The industry saw the 1270’s positioning as an attempt to widen the market through lower prices. For BPS—a small