Great article. As you point out, generally software companies are more nimble, but they are more vulnerable as a consequence.

Another activity in the hardware world that consumes time and energy is supplier management. For every component in the product, you’ll want to have two suppliers at a minimum, and usually another in reserve. You need to qualify and requalify the suppliers and deal with their product cycles, which pretty much never correspond with your own.

Giving stuff away for free does not work for consumer goods, only technology goods.

There is probably a boundary on B2B vs B2C as well. I don’t know.

And, you only give stuff away if you can become the market dominator. If market share doesn’t matter, or results from last week’s promo spend, then giving it away, won’t work.