

Disrupting The Innovator's Dilemma - lsukernik
http://larrysukernik.com/blog/2015/2/8/disrupting-the-innovators-dilemma

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bradfordarner
This is a really well written and interesting perspective. I really enjoy
hearing contrarian opinions to commonly held beliefs. Well done!

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hga
Eh. I found it to be more shallow than he accuses _The Innovator 's Dilemma_
to be ... in fact, I'm not even sure the author really understands the
concepts, like the difference between technologies and products. E.g. in the
iPhone the ARM processor is a _classic_ disruptive technology, and to this
date Intel has yet to scratch its dominance.

He also leaves out stuff that's in the book, like it includes studies of at
least one other industry, motorbikes, and the data Christensen had collected
on hard disk drives was very _very_ solid, a truly great datapoint. That was
an area I also followed for almost all of the period studied, albeit not as
thoroughly.

If you've not read the book, I wouldn't even bother with this article.

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bradfordarner
I'm hoping that you were not the one who down-voted a my perfectly legitimate
point of view.

I agree with you that there is a little bit of a straw man attack going on
here...if you haven't read Christensen's book. That being said, the author
does present a number of cases in which Christensen's theory does not seem to
apply. The general piece of advice that many people take from the Innovator's
Dilemma is the idea of entering at the low end of the market where well-
established firms will not compete with you. You can innovate in a much more
narrow area with a small team and survive off of thin margins as you continue
improving your value proposition. This is a very nice idea, but it is most
certainly not some sort of universal formula for making money. I think the
author of the article brings out some interesting cases of where this breaks
down.

As far as the ARM processor...I'm not quite sure how that relates to
Christensen's thesis that disruptive innovation enters at the lower end of the
market and moves up. The ARM processor is most definitely an example of a
sustaining innovation. Of course you could make the claim that the ARM
processor allowed for a significant software advantage at a still reasonable
cost, still fulfilling Christensen's thesis. I think that would be a weak
argument and the rational error contained within is rather visible to any who
was alive when the iPhone was released.

In any case, the article was well composed even if you disagree with his
thesis. I didn't not comment that I felt as though this article was a
masterpiece that was going destroy the Innovator's Dilemma. I simply enjoyed
the article and thought the contrarian point of view was thought-provoking. In
addition, the article did not claim to be an overview and rehashing of
Christensen's entire thesis. He made very clear at the outset that he was
summarizing Christensen's perspective. Hence, if you didn't like the article,
fine. However, it annoys me that my innocent comment expressing enjoyment is
discarded as if it were written without thought or consideration.

