Disruptive technology/innovation

From Economist.com

In his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, Clayton Christensen (seearticle) made a distinction between two different types of technology that affect business, a distinction that has since become accepted wisdom. On the one hand he described what he called “sustaining technologies”, technological developments that help organisations to make marginal improvements in what they are doing. These require only gradual change and pretty much retain the statu quo.

On the other hand, there are what Christensen termed disruptive technologies. These are wild and unexpected technological breakthroughs that require corporations to radically rethink their very existence. At first they seem of limited interest, but eventually they completely overturn existing products and markets. Christensen quotes the examples of the mobile phone (which took the wind out of the sails of fixed-line operators), digital photography (which sent sales of camera film plummeting and caused Kodak to change its whole business model) and online retailing (which continues to bruise many a traditional retailer).

Continues @http://www.economist.com