Three levels of Product
Customer often thinks of product as a tangible or physical item but there is more to a product than its physical appearance and tangible aspect. There are 3 levels of a product - Core, Actual and Augmented. I will us the example of automotive industry in order to explain this

	1.      Core Product - This defines the benefits of the product. If you consider a car as a product, the core product is not the actual car. The core product is the "benefit" to the consumer and in case of a car it the fast transportation. 2.      Actual Product - This defines the actual product and in our example it is the actual car. In addition, it includes the brand, color, design, quality, and durability of the car 3.      Augmented Product - This defines the additional elements that can be added to the actual product. In our example this can be the manufacturing warranty, servicing and maintenance, financing service and customer service.
Product Lifecycle The image on the right illustrates the typical lifecycle of a product. The product is introduced in the market and starts with initial growth where sales are rising, slowly followed by maturity where prices are at peak with stable sales and finally followed by a gradual decline.

The product gets obsolete inevitably (the decline phase of product lifecycle) and gets replaced by a better product that provide superior benefits. Below are some classic example of products that went obsolete
1. PDAs - Everyone remembers PDAs, aka palmtop computers, the mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. With the introduction smartphones, PDA are now surely things of past. The reason is pretty simple, why carry a PDA when your smart phone can be PDA, camera, MP3 player, and GPS.
2. Dial up – I still remember when we used a dialup connection and waited forever for the page to render on the browser. The slow speed (56 kbps) and intermittent connection disruption was so annoying. Now we use high speed internet with zooming speed of 5-12 mbps
3. The landline - Today with the wireless penetration in US is currently at 89%, most of the people are using mobile and internet voice services as their primary way to connect with people. It is much cheaper than the landline and in some cases, with internet voice services, you can make international call free. If you have a landline, it’s time to change.
Here is an interesting article on what’s gone obsolete in last decade    
http://www.businessinsider.com/21-things-that-became-obsolete-this-decade-2009-12?op=1
http://www.debate.org/opinions/will-cds-become-obsolete

Product Lifecycle getting shorter

Noticeably, with the advent of technology, increasing consumer awareness, rapid changing demand, and growing market competition the product lifecycle is getting shorter day by day. This trend has put a lot of pressure on the organization to react to the change in market and consumer trend and quickly turnaround with the right fit product. This changing demand means that demand planning and forecasting needs to be accurate. The introduction of technology in understanding customer's buying patterns can help organization plan and adjust with the market trend. To ensure maximum profit, it is inevitable for the company to launch sooner and gain early bird bonus. Technology has played primary role in reducing the product development lifecycle. If we look at Apple and Samsung, the furious market competition is forcing these companies to launch new product models almost every year resulting in cannibalization of their older models.

References

http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/half-life-get-used-to-shorter-product-cycles
http://www.supplychaindigital.com/procurement/the-product-life-cycle-is-in-decline
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/product-life-cycles-are-getting-shorteroringerCsHeGitCTmSUO4Ia4gR5ig.html