differentiating between groups of products that are very similar?

Question

This is the corner I'm backed in to:

My company is releasing a new line of products that use the same hardware as our current products, but with completely different software -- a cloud based version of current software. The new products are going to co-exist with the old products, so I have to figure out how to list them without drawing too much attention away from current products, without confusing customers, and without hamstringing the promotion of the new products. This is a problem because A and B have the same hardware and perform the same function, even though one is cloud based and the other is not.

This is the current page:

How would you structure this page to make a distinction between two groups of products that are very similar?

The current idea is to create a separate tab on the global navigation bar for the new products. The cloud products page would have the same layout as the non-cloud products page. I think that'll confuse customers, but I don't know enough about information architecture to propose a viable alternative.

Answer 1

Customers don’t want to buy a product, they want to find a solution to their problem. So you should organize your site based on the function of your products. Since both versions (cloud based and non-cloud based) serve the same function, I recommend you to group them together. Find bellow two alternative suggestions :

• You can divide existing product slides in two and display the old product on the left and the new product on the right. At the top of the new product, add a bold label “Cloud Based”.

OR

• At the end of the existing slide display a link with a description like this “Check out our new cloud based product, which [list one or two major benefits ]”