For this post I am referring to TOTL.
If you look at the arranger market or any keyboard market in its most simplest terms, they can be divided in to the home market and the professional market.

For arrangers, manufacturers try to cater to the home market, whiled trying to pick up some of the professional arranger market.


Yamaha has one concept and Roland, Korg, Ketron and Lionstrack have another approach.


Yamaha builds its arranger for the home user and includes some pro features to get some of the pro market. Yamaha’s concept is build it for the home market and who wants to use it professionally can do so.
Where as the other brands build their arrangers for the pro and believes that if it is good for a pro, it is good for the home user.
That is why you see more advance features on other arrangers as opposed to Yamaha.
So that is another way the arranger market is fragmented.

It is going to be interesting to see what Korg and Roland do with their TOTL arrangers now.


------------------
I have shortened my ID to TTG

Great explanation Spalding...well said.

Ian

Hi Genesys
These keyboards, Roland G1000-G70, Korg PA1xpro-2Xpro, Ketron SD1+-Audya and Lionstrack Mediastation DO NOT all fall in the same niche market. We tend to look at these instruments as general arranger instruments but they are not to the manufacturer.

The mediatstaion is in a niche that some would argue has yet to be discovered in terms of clear demarcation and profitability. The Korg PA product is a true workstation arranger hybrid and will be more attractive to producers and style makers (especially eastern) because of its sampling and deep editing functions and its ability to fit in as part of a studio keyboard as well as live performance, but its weight puts the elderly mature buyers off. Also its operating system is more complex than yamaha. The Roland G70 and E80 lost market share almost entirely due to its weight. It was not well known for its deep editing potential (although i know it had some) or its sampling potential (it had none) so it had no redeeming qualities to appeal to any of the other niche markets although it was an excellent machine. Roland themselves didnt know who their market was and sold it in plainly stupid distribuition outlets. Ketron products were and still are the best kept secrets of the arranger world. However if you cant see a product , touch it and ghear it you cant sell it and few will buy that product unless you were already aware of Ketron

So what seesm like a simple question i actually quite complex.

Yamaha have some of the best defined target markets in terms of their ideal types of customer.

1. They know their customer and arnt afraid to listen only to their customer.
2. they know what their customers will buy, and how often and what features will apeal even down to the colours they prefer.
3. They know how their customers prefer to purchase in terms of distribution outlets amazon local music stores catalogues etc.
4. They understand that high visibility both in terms of advertising but a presence on the web throuigh forums like ours and elsewhere. They understand how important and strong branding is.

In other words they understand the market that they are selling to and they seem to be doing a good job at it.

Spalding another excellent post!!
You really have the ability to analyze and also realize that something is not as simple as some may think it is.

I would agree that Yamaha knows their market and are very confident (arrogant?) in their product . They do not do things for no good reason.
For example, when they increased the price of the XS lat year (in the height of the recession), I am sure that it was done with the thinking that the new XF would have been out in 2010 and rather than making it seem that the XF is costing more it looks as if the XF is the same price as the XS.

However, I don’t know if I am convinced that Yamaha understands their market.

Just and for example, if Yamaha took their 61 key customers and asked them if they would like a 49 and a 76 key arranger, I am sure the answer would be the same for both the 49 and the 76.
Now, if you ask them why did they give the answer they did, it would be for 2 very different reasons.
I wonder how much of the Why question does Yamaha ask.


And yes, one advantage that Yamaha has is that that they have markets across the board. So if you are a beginning player you get a Yamaha and after a few years you become good and want to play professionally, you can still stay with Yamaha because Yamaha also makes keyboards for professional player.

If you are a beginning player and you have a Casio, and later want to play professionally, you have to get another brand.

If you have been playing Korg, Roland or Ketron professionally and now want a keyboard for your little child (or your self) to play with at home, you have to go to another brand. (something that Iana thinks is a good thing)


------------------
I have shortened my ID to TTG

It is simple really...Yamaha's customers indicated they preferred a 61 Key board with a lighter plastic case and did not have the choice. They still do.

The market is and was Organ players who never had 76 keys. Tomorrows assisted living and Moose Club performers may want 76 keys on the Tyros. But then again tomorrows assisted living audiences may want to hear Allman Bros and Aerosmith and Marilyn Manson too. I don;t think Moon River will fly with that generation. Arrangers may have a totally different bent then...or be extinct.

LOL If you own a Yamaha keyboard and you register (in may cases the dealers must do the registrations) you will likely get surveyed.

BINGO.....

However the question will be asked....how MANY would buy a 76 key version in ADDITION to the 61 key version (remember Yamaha does not want to mess with their very happy 61 key owners.)

Would it be a good financial move to try to garner a few other brand Arranger players who may be just as loyal (as you are to your Roland and many others to the PA2x , Audyas etc.) to their brands for reasons that go far beyond key count?


I rather think Yamaha believes those player play those boards for more reasons than another 15 keys and in that regard it would be guessing rather than knowing which they have know..Facts. their Tyros buyers want 61 keys ,buy 61 keys and given an equal economy sell more Tyros with each new model since the 9000.

They apparently do not think it is worth "guessing" how many will leave their Korgs et al simply for Tyros because it has 16 more keys. I cannot say I blame them. Sure they can survey a Roland owner who claims they may or would buy the Tyros instead if it had 76 keys. From what I read most people love what they play and would not switch to Tyros for 15 more keys. A handful might. Yamaha isn't ready to retool another plastic case and whatever else they have to bring to the table for the unknown when they already have a market they can count on and plenty of choices at that already.

People who really want a Tyros will buy them with 61 keys. People who don't won't buy them with 76 keys, 88 or 188.

The 76 Key S70SX is not selling nearly as well as the S90XS Now THOSE extra keys are a complete waste. But those who play 88 weighted apparently do not want 76 weighted. I have sold three S90XS while the only $100 less S70SX sits. For $100 more the 88 keys seems like a batter value and really is not all that much heavier




[This message has been edited by Kingfrog (edited 09-25-2010).]

LOL... which makes it a self-perpetuating system, as, to get surveyed, you MUST buy a Yamaha 61. If your preference is for a larger keyboard, you are NEVER going to get surveyed, because you CAN'T buy a decent Yamaha 76...

And round and round it goes...

This couple of paragraphs by spalding I believe hits the nail on the head...

Heres the thing and i have mentioned this a number of times before. Yamaha is wary of cannabalising sales from their product range and so are very carelful about what features they offer in the numerous segments or niches of the market. Adding 76 keys to their top of the line arranger may gain more cutomers (or not) but it may also lose sales from their other 76 key instrumnets and worse, may alienate their already well developed well segmented sales from their existing customers who are size and weight sensitive.

Other manufacturers may wish to try and compete by offering 76 key arrangers and if yamaha saw a way to do that and could make the most profit from it (without cannabilising existing sales elsewhere) they ould do it. Its not an emotional issue for yamaha as it is for some of us. If it made good business sense , it would be done.

Yamaha's decision to not make a TOTL 76 has NOTHING to do with what customers actually WANT... It is about protecting their internal divisions and not cannibalizing sales in one sector by a better, competing product in another. This is the ONLY explanation I have ever heard that makes any sense... every other one is easily disproved, simply by showing other manufacturers being able to do it. Or Yamaha doing it themselves, albeit badly.

Maybe I'm an odd duck, but I completely fail to see how what size keyboard you prefer to play on has ANYTHING to do with the capabilities you need on that keyboard. There are 61 note players who need next to nothing. There are 76 and 88 note players who want everything that is available. The two things are completely unrelated. In the WS world, it is acknowledged as a fact of life that ANY keyboard needs to be available in all possible configurations. Yamaha don't say that 76 and 88 MotifXF players don't need anywhere NEAR the capability that 61 MoXF players do... they realize, only too well, that keybed choice has NOTHING to do with what a player needs out of their WS.

Main difference is, Yamaha have no other divisions with really similar products to the Motif. So the market hasn't been balkanized, and divided up so that intra division rivalry prevents them from making a product that there IS a demand for (or NOBODY would buy PA2Xpro's, Audya's, G70's, Mediastations, etc. ).

But, as Yamaha see no need to differentiate their WS line on size differences, it is hard to accept that, mysteriously, the arranger market is any different, and Yamaha's actions are based on pure market research. Bottom line is, even if the market research DID show a need, Yamaha would not make it, because it would clash with their current product divisions. And we would NEVER hear from them that they had seen the market, but chose to ignore it. We only have the evidence of our eyes to prove that...

BTW, just to address the size and weight comment...

Roland made a VERY capable 76 with quite a nice action, AND built-in speakers for only about four pounds more than an S910, the E60.

If Roland can do it, SURELY Yamaha would have no problem, and those happily lugging an S910 around (or the even heavier Tyros4) would have no problem. Few lug their arrangers around in cars, and gigging pros ARE the exception, rather than the rule. Moving an E60 around the house is no more burdensome than the T4 (less, actually). Time after time, excuse after excuse is so easily proven wrong, it makes you wonder WHAT you are thinking, offering up such flimsy excuses..?

If Yamaha had only ONE division that made and sold ALL keyboards with arranger capabilities, whether in piano cases, lightweight cases, 88, 76 and 61 sizes, I GUARANTEE that there would be a TOTL 76 in their line-up...

Diki why not a compromise 73 keys like NORD?