Disagree - delays make competition stronger (archive)

I disagree that delaying the car gives BMW a competitive advantage. Just the opposite. The longer it takes them to get this car out, the further along the competition gets. If BMW had shipped on time (can you say nearly 6 months ago?) there would have been _nothing_ to shine a candle to it. Now by the time they finally get cars moving, they will have the new offerings from Mercedes, Audi, etc to contend with.

My thinking is that BMW simply has too much on it's plate with all the new SUVs, minis, 7 series, etc that it's trying to push out, and the M3 program has gotten munged by poor process management. I've seen this a lot in industry. It's not any one thing. There is no fatal flaw in the engine, just one thing after another keeping the program from moving foward on schedule because the sharp competent program managers are off working on other things. Sad to say, since the M3 is very close to the heart and soul of BMW, but that's what it looks like to me.

And to top it all off, BMW has done a _horrible_ job of communication on the car. Dealers are making up stories because no one really knows what's going on. Rumors breed when there is a lack of real communication, and look at what ripe fields of ignorance BMW has sewn around the M3.

Hopefully they will get their act together and start shipping cars soon. At this point calling them 2001 or 2002 models is almost moot. Just ship the darn things. The waiting list is probably 6000+ deep, and the only way to deal with it is to start pumping out cars.

$0.02

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