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Pre-show coverage Gartner Symposium Sydney 2003  ZDNet Australia |
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Most industry watchers pinned Digital's "failure" to survive squarely on its CEO, Robert Palmer, but in another part of Massachusetts, a Harvard professor had other ideas.
Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen observed that Digital's fall wasn't due to weak management. Rather, the minicomputer industry had crumbled under the weight of the personal computer--a lower-quality solution once deemed as an insignificant foe.
He said Digital was a classic victim of disruptive innovation.
Disruptive innovation occurs when the level of technological progress exceeds customer requirements, and in turn creates opportunity for an upstart to offer more affordable and simpler alternatives to users who don't need the advanced functionality.
In a recent interview, he explained that once the newcomer penetrates the low-end market, it can improve the product and capture market share from incumbents, and in some cases even eliminate the leader as it moves up the chain.
Analysts at research firm Gartner have been applying Christensen's theory to the IT environment and see the manifestation of disruptive innovation in open-source software.
Disruptive innovators primarily attack from the bottom-end of the market. Open-source software first emerged in research, then entry-level computing but is now slowly becoming mainstream, said Steve Bittinger, a research director at Gartner Research.
"It's not a question of whether open source in itself is disruptive...it's how vendors react to it," Bittinger told ZDNet Australia ahead of his address at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2003 in Sydney next month.
A good example is Microsoft's reaction to Thailand's People's PC project--which saw the proliferation of open-source software as computers powered by Linux TLE, a Thai version of the Linux operating system, was the mainstay of the scheme.
In response to the growing popularity of the project, the software behemoth had to slash prices on Windows XP and Office to participate in the programme, a move Bittinger described as "dramatic". Other critics labelled it as a sign of desperation.
"It's often quite difficult to destroy disruptive innovators," he said.
Bittinger predicts Microsoft will ultimately be forced to embrace open-source software the same way it had to embrace the Internet.
"Bittinger predicts Microsoft will ultimately be forced to embrace open-source software the same way it had to embrace the Internet."
The difference is that the Internet did not cause Microsoft to have to slash 90% off their over-priced product catalogue; Open Source will accomplish this.
All power to Microsoft's userbase, who may finally get reasonable software value from that company.