The Innovator’s Dilemma (read parts
on Google Books) is a book about how the people that invent something new and cool are resistant to the next generation thing that will replace it. Not only resistant, but economically disadvantaged from making the new thing: but new startups are able to make that new thing because they don’t have to maintain the revenue stream.
When I was at Bell Labs the president of Bell Labs read “The Innovator’s Dilemma” and was so excited by it that he gave copies to many managers, and soon everyone was reading it.
Today on the train I was thinking about the book and I realized that Bell Labs recognized the problem but did nothing about it. They had one product (”the soft switch”) that was more of a boondoggle than a real product, and that got cancelled. The thought that kept running through my brain was that they interpreted The Innovator’s Dilemma as a description of their demise, not a call to change.
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