Every now and then I wander over to Dan Lyons' Fake Steve Jobs blog. If you haven't you should take a look some time. Whether you think his caricature of Steve Jobs as a tyrianical artiste is funny or not, you may be surprised by the insightful commentary. Personally, I think FSJ is a pretty good satire, but I wouldn't keep reading it if it weren't for how sharp Dan is. As a Forbes Senior Editor, I think Dan can Every now and then I wander over to Fake Steve Jobs blog. If you haven’t you should take a look some time. Whether you think his caricature of Steve Jobs as a tyrianical artiste is funny or not, you may be surprised by the insightful commentary. Personally, I think FSJ is a pretty good satire, but I wouldn’t keep reading it if it weren’t for how sharp Dan is. As a Forbes Senior Editor, I think Dan can’t help analyzing the IT industry even if he occasionally throws in some humor. Recently, FSJ did a great analysis of Dell countering an article by Charlie Cooper from CNet and giving his perspective on why they will not bounce back any time soon. What people overlook is that the advantages that allowed Dell to prosper for about a decade were all fleeting advantages. Dell was for a while an innovative company, but its innovations did not involve product design. They involved manufacturing and distribution efficiencies.On the distribution side, Dell sidestepped the cumbersome and costly two-tier (or is it three-tier) distribution model that its PC rivals had allowed to grow up around them like kudzu until it was choking them and consuming a huge chunk of their profits… Game-changer here was the Internet which made it easy for anyone to set up their own Web store and build direct relationships with customers. Dell’s advantage got erased.On the manufacturing side, Dell figured out faster than the others in its space how to squeeze component suppliers and play them off each other… What wiped this one out was a little place called China. Have you heard of it? The rise of China means everyone can make PCs pretty much as cheaply as Dell does. FSJ goes on to point out that the most significant innovations are those that are about product ideas and product design. To sustain an edge in any market you must make better products than your competitors, consistently, over and over and over again. Just making the same products as everyone else but taking a little friction out of the system can give you an advantage, but only a temporary one.In that regard, even Open Source’s cost advantage is also fleeting. Once you’ve got umpteen different open source solutions all vying for the user, price alone will not convey a long term advantage. You need to understand what is unique and compelling about your product. What advantages does your product have over the competition? Low price can get you in the door, but price alone will not keep your produt in production. It’s still a competitive market. Open Source