Big menu or small?

When going out for dinner, which do you prefer – a restaurant where the menu lists two hundred different dishes or one with just five entrées?

Here’s the dilemma; choice is good, but when the menu is small doesn’t that suggest the chef is playing to his strengths?

It was my browse of the Matrix Vision web site that got me thinking this way. They’re classic “big menu” people, but I wonder if they’d do better to focus on a smaller range of products? There’s a phrase in “In Search of Excellence” about “sticking to the knitting,” which means don’t try to broaden out beyond your competencies. I think quite a few machine vision companies would do well to heed it.

Would you rather be known as a niche specialist, or as all-things-to-all-men?

And that concludes my “Thought for the Day.”