Seth Godin has an interesting post about bundling.

It got me thinking about how this applies to software. One application is this: General purpose software often doesn't stand out as much as software with a sharp focus, even if it's as good or better.

Part of the reason is due to the effect that Seth talks about. When someone searches for a product, they search for something that solves one specific problem. So what they find first are the products that focus specifically on that problem. The general-purpose apps fall to the bottom of the list.

Of course, part of the problem is likely due to the fact that it's hard to create general purpose software that excels in several areas without being hard to use or expensive. But I recall in the early days of Palm OS, there were tons of specialized database apps and a few really good general-purpose databases. The specialized apps always seemed to out-sell the general purpose database apps, even when the general purpose apps were just as good. Some of those database applications even came with hundreds of templates to make them work just like the specialized apps.

How do you get around this effect if you have a really good "bundled" application (e.g. a product that solves more than one problem)? One extreme idea is to create separate products. Market each one at one of the problems it solves. It's actually the exact same product under the covers, but it's targeted at just one problem instead of several.