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OLED, Organic light emitting diode based screens.
Sony uses plastic instead of glass as the basis of the screen.
2.5-inch prototype display
Supports 16.8 million colors at a 120 x 169 pixel resolution
0.3 mm thick and weighs 1.5 grams

The competition: LG Philips, Universal Display Corporation.

References: OLED Blog.

This blog’s Long Tail: Next Gen Prius?, Innovation and cultural differences, BWM & Google, Sci-Fi based scenarios, Innovative mobile phones

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• 400 HP, via a 3.5-liter DOHC V6, mated to an assumed 650V, water-cooled electric motor.
• Extensive use of carbon fiber and aluminum.
• Mid-four-second 0-60 sprint.
• Price tag in the mid-$30,000… the FT-HS is a concept car at this point.

References: CNET, Autoblog.

This blog’s Long Tail: Innovation and cultural differences, BWM & Google, Sci-Fi based scenarios,  Innovative mobile phones.

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Understanding that not all innovations are aimed to deliver profitable ventures in mere economic terms (such as some open source, non-for-profit and public interest projects) it is worth recalling that in the early nineteen hundreds, Schumpeter talked about “creative destruction“: a birth-and-death process being the main engine behind progress and economic growth. I captured the following insights from Robert M. Solow’s article on the subject:

• “Innovation is not the same thing as invention. Anyone can invent a new product or a new technique of production”.

• “The entrepreneur is the one who first sees its economic viability, bucks the odds, fights or worms his way into the market, and eventually wins or loses. Each win means profit for the entrepreneur and his backers, and it also means a jog upward for the whole economy”.

• “In the course of this process, which cannot possibly run smoothly, many businesses, individuals, and institutions, themselves founded on earlier successful innovations, will be undermined and swept away.”

• “A successful innovation confers at least a temporary monopoly. Without the lure of those monopoly profits, there would be no incentive for anyone to bear the risks of entrepreneurship”.

While many innovations displace, replace and cannibalize existing products and practices this is not a “zero sum game“. We have seen crisis and casualties involving market segments that shrink and even disappear without experiencing a synchronized re-balancing of the overall economy. There have also been economic booms driven by innovations that have actually expanded market opportunities. These would involve:

• Unserved markets by delivering a limited feature set and or a product configuration that meets consumers’ affordability, and/or by addressing adjacent market opportunities with an incremental approach to innovation.

• Newly created markets based on paradigm shifts and enabling opportunities that did not previously exist.

However, even when a disruptive innovation is identified, Clayton Christiansen would point that:

“Existing businesses are often reluctant to take advantage of it, since it would involve competing with their existing (and more profitable) technological approach”.

“[ Corporations should ] watch for these innovations, invest in small firms that might adopt these innovations, and continue to push technological demands in their core market so that performance stays above what disruptive technologies can achieve”.

The fact is that we operate in an ecosystem with a fairly diverse taxonomy in place. For that matter, when it comes down to articulating a corporation’s innovation strategy “one size doesn’t fit all“. Businesses need to evaluate the pros and cons of the options available to them as well as their potential ramifications. Then, once a given innovation has been embraced, the immediate next level question is how to sustain its competitiveness beyond day one. Profitability can com from:

• Assuming the risk of being first to market reaping the rewards of catching competitors off guard.
• Capturing niche markets where value based pricing involves a premium.
  
• Developing adjacent markets and incremental revenue taking advantage of a new product configuration.
• Addressing mass markets, planning for scalable growth.

Common pitfalls:

• Overengineering, underestimating budgets and hidden costs.
• Oversimplifying minimum requirements for the product to deliver enough value on day one.
• Overlooking fast followers who can quickly develop an equivalent product or service.
• Disregarding external dependencies by announcing something new too soon without a supportive ecosystem.
• Late to market, having missed the window and launching when once favorable conditions do not longer exist.
• Disrupting sales of existing cash cows, then suffering from a shortage of cash to continue to fund the innovation.
• Brain drain, specially when key people cannot cope with the roller coaster environment and higher risks often characterizing early stage ventures.

Read James Robertson’s blog and “Heavy Thinker” by Robert M. Solow. References: Disruptive Innovation.

This blog’s “Long Tail“: The myth of commoditization, Innovation in motion, Innovation must be managed, Value innovation, Lessons not learned, The innovation gap, 10 things to do in 2007, La Alquimia de la innovacion, Powered by innovation, Spending less on R&D.

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