User blog:Mays23/Chapter 3 Summary

After reading this chapter, I have a better understanding of why companies do not focus and invest vast amounts of time and energy towards architectural innovation. As it said in the chapter, there is more money to be made by improving the components of the existing technology rather than create a new one that will vastly affect the whole industry. Thinking of this, I think of all of the oil companies who say they are researching renewable energy (aka "vaporware" for Dr. Wales(accidently read chapter 4)), but are still continuing to put most of their focus towards what they already have in place. The first question that comes to my mind is, "Why wouldn't you want to preserve our planet and create reliable, environmentally safe energy?" I'm sure they have plenty of reasons why but the biggest one in my opinion is, if there is lots of money to be made in what they already have(which there is), there is no reason for them to think about switching to something that is not guaranteed.

Before reading, I believed that whenever a company created a new technology or added something different to something already existed, they should release it to the market as soon as possible to gain a competitive advantage. But after reading, I realized it is not that simple and that it does not always result in the highest performance. A company should take a look at what stage their technology is in the S-Curve, other technologies that could be intersecting or exceeding yours', and all of the internal/external factors that go into if or when they should release a new technology.

The constant change of technology is inevitable, but I thought it was something uncontrollable, something that when it came in front of companies they have to just had to roll with it and adjust as necessary. Although somewhat true, I realized that there ways companies have learned to manage to some degree the evolution of technology.