Zombie Technologies Resist Disruption

Sometimes, the situation is not as dynamic as tech strategists would like to believe it is. My entry on inflection points and truly disruptive change struck the customary note of paranoia, cautioning those of us who project a growth rate and assume it will always be thus. Clipper ships, buggy whips, and telegrams are easy examples of technologies eclipsed by change. But we are also surrounded by stubbornly durable products that continue to hang around long past the point that any tech strategist would expect.

Why, for example, do FAX machines still exist? We can send PDFs around by mail, it's easy to sign and return documents completely digitally. Yet, my recent home refinance expected me to conduct the entire transaction by FAX. (I got them to accept an encrypted ZIP file full of PDFs instead.) A product manager in 1995 with a glimpse of today's mobile interconnected world would surely have predicted the death of the FAX machine by now, yet it's still a multibillion dollar (if declining) industry. The production equipment is fully-capitalized, R&D budgets are low, and demand still inexplicably exists. A generation of workers is comfortable with the equipment, and despite the hassles it is "good enough." Office equipment companies will ride this curve down the backside of the product life cycle curve as long as those thin commodity profit margins will sustain the business.

What other forms have persisted surprisingly beyond their sell-by date? Bicycle couriers? In-person equity trading floors? COBOL? The imperial system of measurement?

Disrupting Photons

Technology-watchers have been predicting that cell phone cameras will replace single-function cameras since the first featurephones were released. The serious photographers who write on the subject have now embraced the digital SLR over chemical film, but still laugh at the idea that the tiny optics of a phonecam could ever subsume a dedicated device. Today, I saw evidence that the laughing is over and that phone manufacturers have moved on to the next phase in the tech transfer attitude chain. ("first they mock you, then they fight you, then you win")

There is a billboard just outside Logan airport which says "If it has a ringtone, it's not a camera." This is obviously a defensive move from a threatened incumbent. I am writing this from MIT's Killian Court where hundreds of tourists pour forth from buses each day to photograph each other in front of the great dome. An informal survey shows that about half are using cellphone cameras. Personally, I take more pictures with my blurry iPhone 3GS camera than with my fancy Canon s90 or my rugged Pentax w80. The iPhone 4's camera is even better and will probably represent even more of my picture-taking when I purchase its successor. The idea of a cell camera replacing a single-purpose device is already here for the majority of consumers and is just around the corner for everybody but the most serious artiste.

My tech strategy classes last semester covered many such turning points. We have seen the signs and they are all here. I am imagining the New England lake-ice industry with a billboard in 1920 saying "If it came from a machine, it isn't ice." Sailboat makers could claim "If it has propellers, it isn't a ship." Gas lighting manufacturers might try, "If there is no flame, there is no illumination." This campaign comes off just as desperate, and just as doomed.