<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">   Delwin D Fandrich wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <div dir="ltr">There is more to life than market dominance. I am old enough to remember when the Cadillac ruled the world (at least the U.S. part of the world) in the luxury car market. It was, if you can recall, The Standard of the World. It was also a mediocre car that held its position through very aggressive and might I suggest, arrogant, marketing.</div> And then along came some viable alternatives first from Europe and then from Japan. It took these folks a while to build the requisite dealer infrastructure and momentum but "suddenly" the folks at GM were in serious trouble. They rallied on with their Standard of the World theme for years -- decades -- but no amount of marketing or brand management or badge engineering could reverse their tumble off the mountain. It took them another decade or so of mucking around in the mud with the have-beens but they finally got the picture. If you want to run with the best you actually have to be the best. Hype doesn't make it, it takes more than just claiming the title. Now that they've decided to fight back aggressively they are actually beginning to design, engineer and build some decent cars. Disregarding their somewhat grotesque styling theme, their performance and build quality is right up there with the best and I expect they will begin regaining some of their lost luster. Market dominance is an elusive thing. It can be held without much effort as long as no one else is out their trying to knock you off the mountain. I've noticed some serious contenders, both from Europe and from Japan, working rather hard of late to do just that. Have you looked at the Kawai Shigeru pianos lately? To site just one example. We'll see. I wish them all well. The industry can't help but benefit from the increased competition. Del   <div dir="ltr"></div>  </blockquote> I hear you Del... it might interest you to know I have played a rather key part in steering our faculty away from buying another Steinway C in favour of a Yamaha CF III.  I mean... we have 2 really nice C's already.. one from 1987 and the other from 1992. Very different from each other. But well.... variety is a good thing in my book. Interesting car example, and point well taken. Curious as well, given the fact that Mercedes seems to be headed down that same path these days. Granted... its easy to fall into complacency and ride on past success and glory. All this goes a good deal down the path of explaining away the market share dilema I see related to the compression damage alarm... if I may call it very loosely that. But it doesnt take me far enough... not at this point anyways. Really bothers me too.. grin.. because the reasoning makes very good sense. I suppose the bright side (for me anyways) is that it pushes me to finding out what I can to come up with a satisfactory explaination. Cheers RicB -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway <A HREF="mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no">mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no</A> <A HREF="http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html">http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html</A> <A HREF="http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html">http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html</A>   </body> </html>