I wrote a piece today on the iPhone from innovation theory perspective. I would love feedback on it. It starts like this:
‘Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything’ said Steve Jobs in his keynote where Apple launched the iPhone. In innovation theory we have a term for such a rare product. It’s called ‘dominant design’. The term was introduced by James Utterback. In his innovation classic, ‘Dynamics of innovation’ (1992), he gives his definition: “A dominant design in a product class is, by definition, the one that wins the allegiance of the marketplace, the one that competitors and innovators must adhere to if they hope to command significant market following.” (p. 24)
To quote Jobs once more: ‘One is very fortunate if one gets to work on one these in your career. Apple’s been very fortunate, it’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world. In 1984 we introduced the Macintosh. It didn’t just change Apple, it changed the whole computer industry.’ Now the Macintosh was the typical example of a dominant design. It’s the first product in the marketplace where all the pieces of the puzzle were right.
The company that brings the dominant design to the market usually reaps huge benefits from it. Take the typewriter: the dominant design was the Underwood number 5 (1899) and the name of Underwood was established. Apple had the same benefit from the Macintosh. However, it made one huge mistake: later in the product cycle the Macintosh was overly expensive, the company grew self-satisfied and lost it’s edge. In 1995 I had to work with a Mac for a while and at the time I preferred Windows 95 (that changed a few years ago).
You can read the whole article here:
Thoughts on iPhone’s innovation at Excellent Government blog
cheers, Frans
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