The great thing about inventing markets is that you get to name them. I’ve recently named the Enterprise (F5/Citrix) market the “Premium” market, and the SMB market (KEMP/Barracuda/Coyote Point) market the “budget market”.
OK, so I didn’t invent them. And I wasn’t the first to treat them as separate markets, but that’s neither here nor there.
“Premium market” or “enterprise market” is pretty apt for the market defined as catering to Fortune 500, dominated by vendors like F5 and Citrix.
But I’m struggling with the term “budget market”, because it has something of a negative connotation. Originally, it was the SMB market. But let’s face it, the term SMB is a snoozer. Budget sounds so very… generic brand dish soap. But that’s not what that market is. It’s more like comparing a Toyota Corolla to a BMW 7-series. Both are quality cars, but one has a nav system, heated/chilled seats, and tons of other fanciness that are great but tend to really jack up the price. They are cars for two separate markets, and there’s no use chastising one or the other.
So I went through a few names, and here is what I had considered:
- Yugo Market
- Happy fun-time market
- Generic Brand Market
- Awesome Market
- Proletariat Market
- Value Market
Value market seemed to be the better choice, which came up in a conversation I had recently. It’s not overly snarky, and it doesn’t have any of the negative connotations that the term budget might have.
So I dub thee, the Value Market.
