Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math
(Case Review)

Abstract
This paper is an analysis of a case study originally conducted by the Harvard Business School in August of 2005 and is based on the challenges of introducing a new technology into a market place that for decades been based on “gut feelings and intuition”. The new technology was initially designed to assist consumers in music stores find music that met a certain criteria. Later this was changed because of a sharp decline in music sales. The new revision of the technology was designed to assist music producers, record companies, and artists in the selection of music that could be successful. Faced with a very small marketing budget the challenge of the marketing team was to
By the time the new application was ready for release it had cost AIA and Polyphonic $600,000 and reduced the marketing budget to almost nothing.
2) The next part of the case study I find interesting is the amount of time dedicated to explaining all of the aspects of the record industry and the amount of money spent on producing a single song. What I didn’t see was an analysis of which level of adopter would most likely be interested in purchasing the new technology. Had they looked at this they may have seen that they may have wanted to focus the marketing campaign on the Innovators and Early Adopters and not a certain group segment such as artists or producers.
3) The next point I found with the case study was by the time HSS was ready for deployment Polyphonic only had a budget of $150,000 to try to reach a target market. Having a usable product Polyphonic should have looked at other possible business applications for the technology and possible continued to market the initial version. This could have given them a wider customer base and increased sales. However the problem with introducing a new technology into the market is they cannot accurately be analyzed. [4] They may not have initially known where other opportunities were available but without making the information open to the public they would never know.
4) Another important piece I found with the case study is that when it came to the marketing plan, there was very little information on