First off, Tim is spot on, but second while Tim's message is very interesting, it is not new. It is the subject of Clayton M. Christensen's 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma. Clayton calls it Disruptive Technologies where Tim calls it asyncrhonous competition. They are really the same idea.
I cannot do The Innovator's Delimma justice, but here are a few quotes.
Surely few in the technology world have heard of Clayton M. Christensen, but who there hasn't heard of Tim O'Reilly. Tim brought some excellent graphs and some serious study to locating disruptive technologies. And certainly, he will make the idea known to many many more people. If you get the chance, don't stop with Tim's work. Read The Innovator's Dilemma as well.the established firms stayed atop wave after wave of sustaining technologies (technologies that their customers needed), while consistently stumbling over simpler disruptive ones.
...It is very difficult for a company whose cost structure is tailored to compete in high-end markets to be profitable in low-end markets well.
...Companies whose investment processes demand quantification of market sizes and financial returns before they can enter a market get paralyzed or make serious mistakes when faced with disruptive technologies.
Kudos to both Tim and Clayton for introducing us to new ways of viewing the world.
1 comment:
Thanks for writing this.
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