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Cause
Why do you think of the question " What is a product? " Also start with a conversation with colleagues a few days ago.
I won't talk about the specific content of the conversation. In short, in the course of the conversation, I found that my understanding of the concept of " product " was not very clear, and I could not express my own views very clearly.
Therefore, this caused me to think about the concept of "product", and because of this, I have this article to record the description of the concept of "product".
What exactly is the definition of "product"?
First, I found the definition of "product" on the Wiki:
A product refers to anything that is provided to the market as a commodity, used and consumed by people, and can satisfy a certain demand of people, including tangible items, intangible services, organizations, concepts, or their combination.
For this definition, I am not very satisfied. The answer I want is actually the definition of products for the programmers group; or more broadly, what I want is the definition of products in the IT industry; or, more narrowly, for what I currently In the software development industry, the answer I want is actually the definition of some software-related products.
The answer on the encyclopedia obviously includes all industries, hardware, software and other products.
However, although this answer does not quite meet my expectations, I still agree with the phrase " including tangible items, intangible services, organizations, concepts, or their combination " in the answer .
In my initial understanding, a product (software product) is a software product that should be visible. It should include some visible, interfaced, or located in Web sites, mobile apps, PC apps, etc. The software application on the Server side behind the scenes can be called a product.
However, in the process of talking with colleagues, some of their views and explanations of some of the values of my current company, as well as some explanations of the definition of products from a more professional perspective, let me first There have been some changes in understanding.
In the views of colleagues, they mentioned that products can also be services to customers, solutions to customer consulting problems, and some software products with interfaces that I understand.
This makes me agree!
However, in order to get a more accurate expression or definition of the concept of "product", I still decided to inquire about it, especially for an important role in the IT industry-the product manager’s point of view "The definition of this concept.
A few articles I found:
What is a product? What is a good product?
What is a product? Is everyone really a product manager?
What exactly is a product manager?
In these articles, without exception, the author's understanding of the concept of "product" seems to be some software products such as "interfaces and visible". Except for the sentence " product is the carrier and the carrier of demand " mentioned in the last article , I think these articles are not very helpful to my understanding of the concept of "product".
Or, I have a guess, is it true that the concept of "product" is actually understood in the IT industry?
Actually I want to be complicated?
I found some more articles, but they are similar to the above articles. There is no very clear and formal definition of the concept of "product".
I think that for the concept of "product", maybe I will be lucky to become a product manager in the future, maybe I will have more experience.
At the very least, in my current role as a Developer, the explanations and help in the above article are enough for me!
Or, after I work for a few years, I may have a deeper understanding of this concept!
to sum up
Products (IT products), including visible Web sites with interfaces, PC App, mobile App, invisible CLI, API, and some services, consulting, and solutions can all be called products. The most important thing is that the product is the carrier of demand and the solution of demand. Products can be provided to certain customers or markets as commodities to meet their needs, consumed and used by users, and bring value to them.