[Dabrador]

Let me start by saying if you aren't familiar with the concept of disruptive innovation, please read the book/summary called The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. The concept shows how certain products cut into the low end of the marketplace and eventually evolved to displace high-end competitors and their reigning technologies.

Here's my assessment...Blackberry (and for that matter, Apple, Palm, Microsoft and Google) are all heading down a path of developing the sustaining technologies that improve the performance of their products in the ways that matter to their customers. This is because their management practices are biased toward:

• Listening to customers,
• Investing aggressively in technologies that give those customers what they say they want
• Seeking higher margins, and
• Targeting larger markets rather than smaller ones.

Disruptive technologies, however, are distinctly different from sustaining technologies. Disruptive technologies change the value proposition in a market. When they first appear, they almost always offer lower performance in terms of the attributes that mainstream customers care about.

For example, in computer disk drives, disruptive technologies have always had less capacity than the old technologies. But disruptive technologies have other attributes that a few fringe (generally new) customers value. They are typically cheaper, smaller, simpler and frequently more convenient to use.

Therefore, they open new markets. Further, because with experience and sufficient investment, the developers of disruptive technologies will always improve their products' performance, they eventually are able to take over the older markets. This is because they are able to deliver sufficient performance on the old attributers, and they add some new ones.

Go back in time to when RIM first appeared. They came on the scene as disruptive technology. They did one simple thing and they did it well...e-mail. As a result, they took out the leading firm at the time...Palm.

Palm was focused on sustaining technology and moved away from their very own disruptive technology, which was providing an electronic version of your calendar, tasks and contacts that could speak with your computer. When they came on the scene as disruptive technology, they took out the leading firm at that time, Franklin Planner.

Do you see the trend? RIM and others are now ripe for disruptive technology to take them out. They are trying to add more and more "things" to their core offering, which is a communication device. Convergence is good to a degree. At some point, it becomes bloated with truly unnecessary functions creating an opportunity for someone else (Franklin - Palm - RIM - ???).

Hopefully this will create some insightful discussion. Your thoughts?

[Devlyn16]

I think if you take a look you will find other companies [microsoft, google ETC ] who follow the patten BUT recognise the "disruptive technology" and then move to incorporate the technology BEFORE it overwhelms them.

The question becomes which path will RIM follow.

[Dabrador]

Possibly, but I don't think what Microsoft & Google are doing can be considered disruptive. I'm talking something very radical...a communication device with true voice input that focuses on what you should be doing based on time and place...that's it.

It knows where you are, what you are doing, what you have planned and who else needs to be involved. That's just one idea...I'm sure there are others out there that are truly disruptive.

Think of the auto industry about 5 years ago. One key focus at the time was on how many cup holders they could place inside an automobile. Now look at them. They're being forced to change due to disruptive developments.

Look at wireless communication. The focus now is on who can come up with the most radical fart application (I jest, but you get my point). The true focus is on sustaining technology, not disruptive.

[redsoxrocker]

Possibly, but I don't think what Microsoft & Google are doing can be considered disruptive. I'm talking something very radical...a communication device with true voice input that focuses on what you should be doing based on time and place...that's it.

i think you need to think about the way things were when microsoft and google came out. for example, microsoft revolutionized the way we use computers with programs like word and powerpoint, or heck, the operating system in general. things like that didn't exist at the time in such a way that was easy to use for offices and homes.

when google came out, it changed web searching with adsense. it seems so easy now, but yahoo, alta vista, et al never had these things before.

both companies have changed the way technology works and brought on an irriversible change in the way of doing things - since then, other companies have adapted similar methods and ideas.

[Dabrador]

Agreed...but Microsoft and Google were disruptive technologies when they first appeared. It doesn't appear that they are introducing true disruption in the cell/smart phone industry.

Think "super simplistic"...something that does the most important function on current smart phones and does it very well, at an extremely low cost and for a portion of the market that may not be initially interested in the product.

[LuvMyBB]

What about a company that incorporates your home/landline service with mobile? The convenience of mobile with reliable and hardwired POTS. A true all in one solution...one main number forever.

If you are Microsoft, you either buy them out, bankrupt them, or simply coopt their "disruption" into your current product line(s).

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[redsoxrocker]

Agreed...but Microsoft and Google were disruptive technologies when they first appeared. It doesn't appear that they are introducing true disruption in the cell/smart phone industry.

if you're talking about the smartphone industry, you're right, they're not the innovation leaders in that industry. microsoft is trying with windows mobile (and they do have their loyal followers), which works well with windows. google is always trying to jump into new things, android seems to be doing well considering its their first effort, and they're always developing apps for smartphones, be it google maps or gmail.

who knows what the future will hold for these companies...

[tcseacliff]

based on what you say we should all have at least 2-3 mac books{17"} in each household to run out lives and iphones?? NOT!!!macs are disruptive as they come, same with iphone. a million apps anyone???ipod touch,loaded..??

[Dabrador]

I posted this back in May and now it appears that Google is truly offering the disruptive innovation. The development of the Android OS, IMO, will eat into competing OS's.

I'm afraid that BB and Windows Mobile will be on the proverbial short end of the stick.

It's all about the development community at this point. Android is open, the others are not (or highly limited). If you're a developer, would you rather create with or without strings attached?

Read the last statement in my original post above. I'm afraid the equation is complete and looks like this:

Franklin - Palm - RIM - Android

It was a nice ride while it lasted...

[elvin1983]

I see your point, and you may be onto something, however, while the Android platform does seem to have some potential advantages when compared to the BlackBerry operating system, I don't see it cutting into RIM's bread and butter niche in the market, the business customer, anytime soon. RIM built it's company on making a device geared to the business user first, with push e-mail, rock solid OS, and unparalleled security platform, a security platform that has yet to be matched by any OS developer yet. I personally don't forsee Google (Android) developing an infastructure that you can sell to the big business consumer (BES servers, admin tools) that would be able to compete with the RIM infastructure that most large corporations have been using for years. It would take an awful lot of time and money to develop a platform with the security and reliability RIM offers, and then you have to convince said corporations to switch... I just don't see it happening. With this in mind as well, I would say that Apple with the iPhone platform has just as much of a chance of this as the Android platform at this point in time, but Apple would have to do the same thing I described above, and I just don't see them doing that...

Things are different on the consumer side of the equation, the Android platform shows alot of promise, and who knows, it could possibly overtake RIM in the future (I for one certainly hope not), but I think it has a ways to go. Currently, IMO, the iPhone has a leg up on the Android OS, and is running in a strong second place to RIM's OS (like I said, IMO). I just feel that the RIM OS offers greater reliability, flexibility, and ease of use when compared to other operating systems on the market today. I haven't played with an Android, I'm interested to give it a shot, but with everything I've read about it, I just feel that RIM offers the best platform at the moment.

The smartphone arena is a much more cutthroat market than it was 10 years ago, when RIM began to overtake Palm, there just weren't the players in the market that there are now. People want phones that can do it all, play videos, take great pictures, give them their sports scores, social networking, e-mail, etc, and there are a bunch of options out there to choose from, BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Palm, various Samsung, Nokia, etc. I don't personally think it's a bad thing to add another player (Android in this case as it's the newest), it will just motivate the other manufacturers to refine and add more functionality to their existing platforms, thus making the market more competative. We see it in the computer industry all the time (Apple vs. Microsoft to go to an above comparison). Apple comes out with something new and innovative, and Microsoft adds a version of it to try to compete, Microsoft has something that's worked fantastic for years, and Apple tries to duplicate it. Apple hasn't taken over Microsoft's stranglehold on the market share, and I personally don't think that it will, but it makes for increased development across the board so that we, the consumer, get a better product.

I also agree with your above statement about it being all about the development community at this point, however, while Android is promoting the "open" development of applications for it's platform, developers will certainly have to work within some sort of guidlines and platform limitations, just like developers for RIM and iPhone applications have to. I think that RIM is embracing the development community by offering developer conferences, making tools available to developers that gives them unprecidented access into the workings of the OS to create better, more feature rich applications in the future.

I don't think RIM is going to sit idle, they're a major player in the market, and they didn't get where they are by doing nothing. I think they'll be just fine, and IMO it's WAY too early to call Android the lead dog in the smartphone marketplace.

[Radius]

I hate it when standard development practices are given fancy names so people can sell books about them. I run into that all the time, and it's just upsetting. Next thing you know there's a whole cottage industry devoted to making up new words just to go with it.

[Dabrador]

I posted this back in May and now it appears that Google is truly offering the disruptive innovation. The development of the Android OS, IMO, will eat into competing OS's.

I'm afraid that BB and Windows Mobile will be on the proverbial short end of the stick.

It's all about the development community at this point. Android is open, the others are not (or highly limited). If you're a developer, would you rather create with or without strings attached?

Read the last statement in my original post above. I'm afraid the equation is complete and looks like this:

Franklin - Palm - RIM - Android

It was a nice ride while it lasted...

After less than one year, it's happened. This is as good as it gets???:
BlackBerry Torch Review

Goodbye RIM...