“Technology within the lengthy-run does not matter”. It is exactly what a person of mine explained after i designed a presentation to him about something new. I used to be speaking concerning the product’s benefits and features and listed “condition-of-the-art technology” or something like that to that particular effect, among them. Then he earned his statement. I recognized later he was correct, a minimum of inside the context of methods I made use of “Technology” within my presentation. However I started considering whether he or she is in other contexts too.
Merriam-Webster defines it as being:
a: the sensible use of understanding particularly in a specific area: engineering 2 <medical technology>
b: a capacity provided by the sensible use of understanding <a car’s fuel-saving technology>
Away of accomplishing an activity especially using technical processes, methods, or understanding
The specialized facets of a specific field of endeavor <educational technology>
Wikipedia defines it as being:
Technology (from Greek tÎ???, techne, “art, skill, cunning of hands” and -???Î¯a, -logia) may be the making, modification, usage, and understanding of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and techniques of organization, to be able to solve an issue, improve a pre-existing means to fix an issue, acquire a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or execute a specific function. It may also make reference to the gathering of these tools, including machinery, modifications, plans and operations. Technologies considerably affect human along with other animal species’ capability to control and adjust to their natural environments. The word may either be used generally in order to specific areas: these include construction technology, medical technology, and knowledge technology.
Both definitions center around exactly the same factor – application and usage.
Technologies are an enabler
Lots of people mistakenly believe that it is technology which drives innovation. Yet in the definitions above, that’s clearly and not the situation. It’s chance which defines innovation and technology which helps innovation. Consider the classic “Develop a better mousetrap” example trained in many business schools. You may have we’ve got the technology to construct a much better mousetrap, however if you simply don’t have any rodents or even the old mousetrap is effective, there’s no chance and so the technology to construct a much better one becomes irrelevant. However, if you’re overrun with rodents then your chance exists to innovate an item making use of your technology.
Another example, one that I’m thoroughly familiar, are electronic devices startup companies. I have been connected with individuals that been successful and individuals that unsuccessful. Each possessed unique innovative technologies. The main difference was chance. Individuals that unsuccessful couldn’t discover the chance to build up a significant innovation utilizing their technology. Actually to outlive, these businesses needed to morph oftentimes into something completely different and when these were lucky they might make the most of derivatives of the original technology. Generally, the initial technology finished up within the scrap heap. Technology, thus, is definitely an enabler whose ultimate value proposition would be to make enhancements to the lives. To become relevant, it must be accustomed to create innovations which are driven by chance.
Technology like a competitive advantage?
A lot of companies list a technology among their competitive advantages. Is that this valid? In some instances yes, but Generally no.
Technology develops along two pathways – an transformative path along with a revolutionary path.
An innovative technologies are the one that enables new industries or enables methods to issues that were formerly difficult. Semiconductor technology is a great one. Not just made it happen spawn new industries and merchandise, however it spawned other revolutionary technologies – transistor technology, integrated circuit technology, micro-processor technology. All which offer most of the services and products we consume today. But is semiconductor technology an aggressive advantage? Searching at the amount of semiconductor firms that exist today (with brand new ones developing every single day), I’d say not. What about micro-processor technology? Again, no. Plenty of micro-processor companies available. What about quad core micro-processor technology? Less a lot of companies, however, you have Apple, AMD, ARM, and a number of companies building custom quad core processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, not a competitive advantage. Competition from competing technologies and simple use of IP mitigates the perceived competitive benefit of any particular technology. Android versus iOS is a great one of the salt water evaporates. Both os’s are derivatives of UNIX. Apple used their technology introducing iOS and acquired an earlier market advantage. However, Google, employing their variant of Unix (a competing technology), swept up relatively rapidly. The reason why with this lie away from the underlying technology, however in the way the products thanks to individuals technologies were introduced to promote (free versus. walled garden, etc.) and also the variations within the proper visions of every company.
Transformative technologies are the one that incrementally builds upon the bottom revolutionary technology. But by it is extremely nature, the incremental change is simpler for any competitor to complement or leapfrog. For example take wireless mobile phone technology. Company V introduced 4G products just before Company A even though it might have experienced a brief term advantage, when Company A introduced their 4G products, the benefit because of technology disappeared. The customer returned to selecting Company A or Company V according to cost, service, coverage, whatever, although not according to technology. Thus technology may have been relevant for the short term, however in the lengthy term, grew to become irrelevant.
Nowadays, technologies have a tendency to rapidly become commoditized, and within any particular technology lies the seeds of their own dying.
This short article was written in the prospective of the finish customer. From the developer/designer perspective things get murkier. The further the first is taken off we’ve got the technology, the less relevant it might be. To some developer, we’ve got the technology look just like a product. An enabling product, however a product nevertheless, and therefore it’s highly relevant. Bose utilizes a proprietary signal processing technology to allow items that meet some market needs and therefore we’ve got the technology and just what it enables is pertinent for them. Their clients tend to be more worried about the way it sounds, what is the cost, what is the quality, etc., and less with how it’s achieved, thus we’ve got the technology used far less highly relevant to them.
Lately, I had been involved with attorney at law on the internet concerning the new Motorola X phone. Many of the people on individuals posts slammed the telephone for a number of reasons – cost, locked boot loader, etc. There have been also lots of knocks on the truth that it did not possess a quad-core processor such as the S4 or HTC The one that were priced similarly. The things they unsuccessful to understand is the fact that if the manufacturer used 1, 2, 4, or 8 cores within the finish does not matter as lengthy because the phone delivers an aggressive (or perhaps better of class) set of features, functionality, cost, and consumer experience. The iPhone is among the most effective phones ever created, but it operates on a dual-core processor. Still it delivers among the best user encounters available on the market. The characteristics which are enabled through the technology are what exactly are highly relevant to the customer, and not the technology itself.
The relevance of technology therefore, is really as an enabler, less an item feature or perhaps a competitive advantage, or any numerous other activities – an enabler. Searching in the Android operating-system, it’s an impressive software program technology, but Google provides it with away. Why? Because standalone, it will nothing for Google. Passing on away enables others to make use of their expertise to construct services and products which in turn behave as enablers for Google’s services and products. To Google, this is where the actual value is.