Software Product Management, how different it is from the traditional?

I have been fortunate to work on Product Management for the most of my career till date. I have worked on all the aspects of PM, be it innovation or market research or productisation of an idea or market launch. I often got the opportunity to meet Product Managers from different industries. On one such occasion I met a Product Manager from Auto industry, one of the most matured industry. We shared our notes, discussed about our respective products and the challenges we often encountered. During the conversation he casually argued with me  me saying "After all how different Software Product Management can be? " I didn't have much answer to it at that time. But now looking back there are quite a few differences compared to the traditional PM. At least couple of them are worth mentioning.

First of all the entire business model is so different as compared to the traditional. Why? Because in Software PM the Beta launch is your commercial launch. Time starts ticking from here. How ever you look at only acquiring new customers/subscribers who may or may not (which is usually the case) be paying. You will figure out later in the stage probably during growth stage on how to make the  money out of your customers/subscribers. Many a times its not your customers/subscribers who shall pay the money but its your advertiser. This is a huge shift from the traditional Product management.

There is nothing called production line and cost in Software Product Management. You build it once and you sell the same to all. Only different is the License keys which are unique to each customers. These days there are no medias/boxes which shall be shipped as well. So what is the result; you end up in huge margins. One of the most successful product (Which is MS windows) has more than 70% as a margin. Another advantage is your cost of prototyping is very minimal as compared to the other industry.

At the flip side, Yes! there are quite a few challenges and threats.  You will have the competition from "Copy Cats" and "Me Too" all around you, almost at the very next day of your launch. There is no essence of "touch and feel" in the Software Products. Lack of maturity in building the Product as compared to Auto and Construction.

There are of course, significant improvements in the Software Product Development Life Cycle in the past few years. With Rapid development tools, UML and Agile methodology the life shall be much simpler and smoother.