I disagree. It's never been
harder to compete by producing a long-term, very reliable machine.
* You have to make your machine good the first time. The customer buys it completely, no chance to update and fix things.
* Your machine is marketed as reliable. This means it has to be reliable, so you put a lot of effort / material / money into your machine, when your competition puts in much less.
* If your machine is indeed reliable, your customers won't show up for another in a few decades(!). They also won't need many spare parts. This will make your machine much more expensive up front. On a market where an average machine is priced in hundreds of thousands USD, this may be a deal breaker.
* Since you are a newcomer, there's little implicit trust to you, right when you are selling very expensive hardware much higher than competition.
It looks like everything is stacked against you.
* You have to make your machine good the first time. The customer buys it completely, no chance to update and fix things.
* Your machine is marketed as reliable. This means it has to be reliable, so you put a lot of effort / material / money into your machine, when your competition puts in much less.
* If your machine is indeed reliable, your customers won't show up for another in a few decades(!). They also won't need many spare parts. This will make your machine much more expensive up front. On a market where an average machine is priced in hundreds of thousands USD, this may be a deal breaker.
* Since you are a newcomer, there's little implicit trust to you, right when you are selling very expensive hardware much higher than competition.
It looks like everything is stacked against you.