Memo to CEO of Applied Biosystems

As a manufacturer of genome sequencing equipment, Applied Biosystems (ABI) operates in a difficult industry. The R&D costs for this type of equipment is astronomical, and the potentional list of customers is limited. One would think that such an industry would be dominated by one particular player since covering fixed costs are difficult, but surprisingly this is not the case here.

ABI used to be dominant, but new entrants to the market have sprung up in the last five years and have been drastically consuming ABI's market share. Part of the reason for this emergence has been a need for a new type of sequencing, which ABI's devices didn't support. Recently, ABI released a new device to meet this need, but it is lagging behind the competition.

I feel there are significant opportunites for ABI to make their devices more attractive. Unlike other industries, the sequencing industry sees significant collaboration between the manufacturers and customers of the equipment since customers can usually make the equipment work more efficiently than the manufacturer intended. I believe that ABI can use IT to make this collaboration more productive and desirable.