The Innovators Dilemma and The Long Tail
It’s been a good week for development, with lots of progress on the Ruby project I’m working on as my day job, and some reasonable progress on my spare time project as well, so there’s nothing immediately contentious to report 
. Consequently, there’s a chance to mention some more of the books I’ve been reading.
First, The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials) by Clayton M. Christensen. Christensen looks at how disruptive technologies enter the marketplace, and why mainstream companies find it very difficult to manage the transition to the new technology. Essentially his thesis is that disruptive technologies are, at least initially, valued for characteristics that aren’t valued by the customers of the dominant technology, so mainstream companies, especially those listening to their customers closely, quite rationally wait for the disruptive technology to become mainstream. In the mean time, other companies develop the new technology, which while it may never outperform the previously dominant technology improves fast enough to become competitive. By the time the previously mainstream companies pick up the new technology it’s too late.
Nice theory, but how does it relate to the current market? I think that Ruby and Rails match Christensen’s definition of a technology. While the performance of Rails may never match the performance of Java for web applications, it will quickly become good enough for most customers. This presents many opportunities for new players to enter the market.
I’ve also finally had a chance to read The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson. Anderson examines the implications of the low carrying and distribution costs available on the internet. When someone can be stored cheaply on disk and distributed at low costs (especially digitally), we can provide access to an incredible range of products – many more than are available in a physical store. When purchases are no longer confined to the small range carried by a store we also find that consumer tastes are extremely eclectic, and there’s profit in providing to these tastes. Rupert mentioned that Jon has recommended this as well, so there must be something in it!
I like the book pictures. They add a nice bit of colour to the page.
Does Christensen talk about business models such as Microsoft’s? Where the mainstream integrates the new into itself as soon as it has become proven?
Christensen does talk about companies who attempt this strategy (though not Microsoft specifically). He presents it as a very difficult strategy to master – I think he’d give Microsoft credit for what it’s done (from a management perspective).