james.mcmillan
lvl.2
Flight distance : 71739 ft
United States
Offline
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I'm just an observer...but I feel that there are a few points that are being missed.
1) DJI's adding functionality to their products (GO, in this case), is never "free." DJI needs to commit resources to add functionality, and that costs money. They would need to recover this cost in the price of their products in some form. In this case, they have chosen not to add the tracking functionality to the OSMO - apparently based on their cost/benefit analysis.
2) DJI has created an open platform which allows/encourages non-DJI developers to add functionality if/when they see a market for it. Of course, they need to be compensated for their efforts, hence, they need to charge a price that justifies their effort, yet that is still at a price that will sell.
3) To my way of thinking, this philosophy makes a lot of sense. To be successful over the long term, DJI needs to create a steady stream of new and innovative products. They must balance their resources between the development of new products and support for existing products. In essence, they "outsource" some of the continued product support for existing products to third parties via their open platform. Further, they don't have to risk their resources adding (software) functionality that they may not be able to profitably provide. They allow the third-party application developers to take that risk - and potentially reap those rewards.
I own a Phantom 3 Standard and bought Autopilot to provide the extra functionality that is not built into DJI GO (including tracking). I see nothing wrong with that. In fact, I'm glad DJI made it possible that a third party could add the extra functionality that I was looking for. Not all Phantom owners need what Autopilot (or Litchi) provides. I was perfectly happy to spend $30 for the added functionality I wanted. However, I wonder how many people would have been happy paying an extra $30 for their Phantoms and get extra functionality in DJI GO they would never use?
That's the trade-off DJI must weight when considering adding functionality to existing products. For those that need the tracking functionality with their OSMO, be happy there's a way to provide it in a pretty cost-effective way. |
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