4 ms·
Clayton Christianson (of The Innovator's Dilemma) has a story about Digital, the minicomputer manufacturer that was the second largest computer company in the l
by 10ren 17y ago
Clayton Christianson (of The Innovator's Dilemma) has a story about Digital, the minicomputer manufacturer that was the second largest computer company in the late 80's:
Their management used to be the darling of the tech press and they could do no wrong. In fact, they were excellent management. Then, when Sun workstations, and PCs appeared, customers switched to them, and Digital didn't make the transition. The press blamed management. But management was the same; it was doing just as good a job as before. The problem was the disruptive innovations are almost always fatal to incumbents.
So that's what's happening here. Microsoft rode a disruptive innovation, the PC, and now it's over. Can't really blame management for that.
It's worthwhile noting that Google has only been successful in one business (search+ads) - great though it is, they don't rake in comparable revenue with gmail (or other products).
Apple is an extraordinary exception in their success with PC's, then with iPods, and now with iPhones.
- rimantas 17y agoI think Tom DeMarco would argue, that you can blame the management for that. In Slack a part of the book is dedicated to change and growth and he tackles the timing of change and the responsibility for it among other things. DeMarco believes, that change (reinvention) must be driven by middle management.
- eru 17y agoI guess it's driven by `sociopaths', to use the terminology of another recent essay.
- eru 17y agoI would call Apple an exception. But not an extraordinary one. E.g. IBM is also still around, and was there for even longer.
- Tamerlin 17y agoI wouldn't, not in that way at least. Apple's been really good about jumping onto up-and-coming trends, particularly recently. IBM's adaptation was the opposite: do nothing. The mainframe market hasn't changed much; the only real change has been that making mainframes costs more now, so IBM's main profit now is in consulting... for mainframe work :)