Date: 2008-03-28 08:20 Subject: The disruptor and the incumbent Security: Public

I was just reading Matt Asay's post on Open source's "superficial impact" on the database market. I don't think it's a matter of "having to start somewhere".

The assessment/conclusion trail of the 451 Group (and other experts, analyst and even regular people in the industry) is typical of most, and it's adequately covered in "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christensen which I believe I've mentioned here before.

The assessment is correct (it's based on facts), but the conclusions are simply irrelevant since they presume that there is a single correct objective or market - in the case of databases, "enterprise" or "mission critical" deployments. But just look at the situation: the definition of both is vague and continually shifting. Some companies don't regard their website as mission critical, even though their online presence is critical to their survival. Go figure.

Anyway, disruptive technology tends to not take over the incumbent's market, but find or develop a completely new market, and indeed take over in that space. The question then is, does the incumbent's market remain intact, or does it change/evolve naturally and perhaps shrink or even completely disappear over time. Generally, the market-dominant incumbent continues to survive in a niche (where they are obviously dominant, but no longer in the market overall). In short, the market changes and with it its rules and demands.

Christensen tracks this pattern through the development of harddisk technology over time, as well as with non-computer products like diggers (from cable-driven to hydrolic). Most companies and business people are in denial about this recurring pattern, but that doesn't make it not occur ;-)
A few decades ago I invented a little saying: "Not all that is not seen by all does not exist at all". But perhaps it's grammatically too complicated (or even incorrect).

But staying with the topic... looking at harddisks for instance, 3.5" half-height drives were fairly useless for the desktop PCs at the time, because even though they were more reliable they cost much more per MB and the smaller formfactor didn't matter. However, for portables it was a key enabler. Similarly, hydrolic diggers didn't take over from the old big gear (at first) but instead found a completely new market digging small trenches in back yards and sidewalks.

In both cases, the incumbent companies failed to capitalise on this because they were trying to plug the new products to their existing customers - as you can easily tell from the above two examples, that was a senseless exercise. However, incumbents may be condemned to this, as their business processes and cost structures are in many ways geared/tied to the existing market in which they operate. Their success in their own space also makes them unable to go elsewhere. The IBM PC only succeeded because it was set up as a completely independent business unit in a different location - otherwise it would have been undermined by IBM's mainframe/minicomputer business. At the time the two would have just conflicted, even though we know that they targeted different markets: for the IBM PC, a completely new market came into existence.

By the way, I know I'm taking some shortcuts here with the stories, so please don't nitpick - I do believe the essense is correct. Do read the book if you're interested in this phenomenon. I find it particularly interesting because even companies that are well aware of it (such as MySQL was, its CEO Marten Mickos being the person recommending the book to me!) can't avoid some of its effects. Many things disrupt the disruptor! That doesn't mean they won't remain successful, it just shows there's plenty of opportunities even in markets that appear saturated with huge incumbents and popular disruptors. There are ways to "please more people" but noone can please everyone. And that's a good thing. In our technology space things move quickly, and there are plenty of viable niches to be explored, with new ones popping up all the time. I actually thought of a new idea (not MySQL related) only a few days ago, I'll just have to see whether I can do something with it quickly.

Date: 2008-03-28 09:25 Subject: More SaaS: Adobe launches Photoshop Express Public Beta Security: Public

That story via MacWorld UK, very interesting. So first of all this allows people to edit photos (bitmaps) online. Secondly, Adobe doesn't try to reinvent the wheel but instead simply plugs into existing infrastructure like Facebook (and I would hope also Flickr). This is smart, as no one can rule it all, you really can't expect to be the one-stop shop that everybody uses. In addition, Adobe makes some useful graphics/publishing tools, they're not a social networking or photosharing company (perhaps they could be, but that's another issue altogether).

Although I follow this stuff in relation to my developing training courses on MySQL and related topics, I'm more interested in the pattern than in this particular event. But I do believe it's significant. Not that SaaS (software as a service) is the solution to everything, particularly since you can't be online always/everywhere, but it's very useful anyway.

Will we soon see a web version of GIMP? I sure hope so. And personally, I'd love to see an online SVG editor. Hold that thought, already exists! Sketsa (but not quite OSS). A quick Google search brought that up. If you know of others (preferably fully OSS), please do let me know through a comment here!