Dvorak Claims Disruptive Technologies Don't Exist
from the a-few-bad-examples dept
John C. Dvorak seems to exist solely to show just how little he understands about technology and business these days. His latest piece points to a few bad examples of what might be disruptive technologies and then claims there’s simply no such thing as a disruptive technology, as described by Clayton Christensen. It appears Dvorak has never actually read Christensen’s books, but assumes he knows what they’re about after hearing Christensen say the idea of disruptive technologies came to him while watching how DEC failed. Maybe the problem is that, like others before him, Dvorak misreads “disruptive” and assumes there needs to be a “big bang” (he mentions the atom bomb as being disruptive), when the truth is “disruptive technologies” are really “straight, boring technologies. In the meantime, I’d suggest that Dvorak take a look at VoIP and camera phones, but it appears he’s already trashed camera phones for not being good enough (the first sign of someone who doesn’t understand disruptive technologies) and while he seems to like VoIP and admit that it’s the “future of telephony,” it never occurs to him that it’s disruptive.
Comments on “Dvorak Claims Disruptive Technologies Don't Exist”
Didn't they name a keyboard after this guy?
(just kidding)
John Dvorak became the resident crumugeon of the PC pundits. He didn’t seem to looking at technologies outside the PC most of the time. He stopped writing columns for other systems like DECuser and MacUser, albeit because those magazines stopped paying him (shortly before ceasing publication).
Robert X. Cringley has been more up to date with the sort of changes we’ve been seeing in such areas and isn’t restricted to the the PC style blinders that Dvorak seems to wear.
No Subject Given
I get the impression Dvorak is just trying to bring down the tenor of the phrase “disruptive technology” as marketing-fodder. He makes a solid point about the way that camera-enabled cell phones are marketed as means-of-public-emberassment, ostensibly because that’s the best thing anyone can think of to do with them. “If you want to take pictures, get a camera.”
Although, I did appreciate the irony of him writing in the context of how these phones aren’t really disruptive because their image quality sucks, then going on to describe how act of setting up a real camera gives cues to people on how to behave (proper) and how the cellphones violate this social contract (improper). Isn’t that the very definition of “disruptive technology??”
Incidentally, I’m also in the VoIP-is-not-disruptive-tech camp. VoIP is simply a changing of underlying infrastructure (layer of abstraction), but at the end of the day, it’s still a phone call (they give you TONE for chrissakes!) Yes, telcos will come and go, but our end experience of voice communication is roughly the same as it’s been for the last 70 or so years.
Re: No Subject Given
Incidentally, I’m also in the VoIP-is-not-disruptive-tech camp. VoIP is simply a changing of underlying infrastructure (layer of abstraction), but at the end of the day, it’s still a phone call (they give you TONE for chrissakes!) Yes, telcos will come and go, but our end experience of voice communication is roughly the same as it’s been for the last 70 or so years.
Just wait… What your seeing now is mostly mimicry of VoIP, but it’s not going to stay there. VoIP lets you do so much more than what you now think of as voice communications….
Re: Re: No Subject Given
Such as….
Re: Re: Re: No Subject Given
such as:
voicemail to email
the ability to move your phone and phone number anywhere in the world without your providers assistance
being able to manage your own calling features (voicemail password resets, e911 information, caller ID info) via a website instead of logging in to a PBX system
being able to save a list of speed dials that are saved on the network, not on your phone (or sim card)
being able to bridge calls to other networks (cellular for example)
setting your own wakeup calls
recording a call just by pressing a button and having it delivered to your voicemail (or email)
free directory assistance
caller ID black listing and whitelisting
being able to see your phone bill online, before the invoice period
i am sure there will be others
Disrupted markets
It is unfortunate that the phrase “disruptive technology” entered the language without the explanation that it is the market that is disrupted, and there there is nothing special about the specific technology whatsoever. CC’s example of hydraulic drive for excavators (backhoes) as opposed to steel cable mechanisms is a good example.
More
Nice list Chris. To continue…
setting up your own forwarding rules for calls
multi phone number simulring
follow-me ringing patterns
transferring calls
adding in multiple participants to make a conf call
group calling
Push to talk
switching a call started on a phone to a PC, a mobile, a wifi phone, a video phone, a car, all on the fly
switching a call started on the PSTN to a call on a P2P network, a wireless network, or another network, on the fly
sending a photo or song in the same data stream as a conversation because you happened to mention the song during your conversation
connecting with people not just by telephone number, but by handle, buddy list, or search tool
presence information integrated into a contact list which suggests the best method of contacting a receiving party
Voice sharing the same network as data traffic, streaming media, web pages, porn, TV, thus a single infrastructure to support with media services layered on top
…Yeah. I’d say IP-based communications are disruptive to the PSTN.
I remember my grandmother talking about all the great choices the telcos came out with in the 70s. You could lease your phone in black OR white. Awesome.