There was a question posted in a Linkedin forum around the subject of Service and Product companies and what the pro's and cons of working for both of them were.

While it is difficult to group both product and service companies under the same umbrella there are certain factors that come to the fore when taking a decision to work for them.

Using the stereotypical definition of service and products company i think the benefits would be:

Product companies tend to be a lot more innovative. Most of their employees seem to work in a very focused area unlike service companies which are all over the place ( there are very few service companies that stick to a particular technology or industry domain ). Product companies tend to give there employees a lot of flexibility in terms of breaking new boundaries, though they do follow standards.

With a service company you tend to experience a variety of technologies and industries ( quite the opposite of a niche product player ). The high levels of quality and process standards that seem to drive a services company ensure that discipline in maintained and there is a "right" way of doing things. The focus seems more towards meeting SLA's than trying to do anything different.