Technology can be an enabler
Many individuals mistakenly believe it is technology which drives innovation. Yet from the definitions above, that is clearly not the case. It is opportunity which defines innovation and technology which enables innovation. Think of the classic "Build a much better mousetrap" example taught in most business schools. You might have the technology to construct a much better mousetrap, but when you yourself have no mice or the old mousetrap works well, there's no opportunity and then the technology to construct a much better one becomes irrelevant. On the other hand, if you are overrun with mice then the opportunity exists to innovate an item making use of your technology.
Another example, one with which I am intimately familiar, are electronic devices startup companies. I've been related to both those that succeeded and those that failed. Each possessed unique leading edge technologies. The difference was opportunity. Those who failed could not find the ability to develop a meaningful innovation utilizing their technology. In reality to survive, these companies had to morph oftentimes into something many different and if they were lucky they may take advantage of derivatives of their original technology. http://yourtechcrunch.com/ More frequently than not, the original technology wound up in the scrap heap. Technology, thus, can be an enabler whose ultimate value proposition is to create improvements to the lives. In order to be relevant, it must be used to produce innovations which are driven by opportunity.
Technology as a competitive advantage?
Many companies list a technology as you of their competitive advantages. Is this valid? In some instances yes, but Typically no.
Technology develops along two paths - an evolutionary path and a revolutionary path.
A revolutionary technology is the one which enables new industries or enables solutions to problems that have been previously not possible. Semiconductor technology is a good example. Not just achieved it spawn new industries and products, however it spawned other revolutionary technologies - transistor technology, integrated circuit technology, microprocessor technology. All which provide most of the products and services we consume today. But is semiconductor technology a competitive advantage? Considering the amount of semiconductor firms that exist today (with new ones forming every day), I'd say not. What about microprocessor technology? Again, no. A lot of microprocessor companies out there. What about quad core microprocessor technology? Not as much companies, but you have Intel, AMD, ARM, and a number of companies building custom quad core processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, little of a competitive advantage. Competition from competing technologies and easy access to IP mitigates the perceived competitive benefit of any particular technology. Android vs iOS is a good exemplory case of how this works. Both os's are derivatives of UNIX. Apple used their technology to introduce iOS and gained an earlier market advantage. However, Google, utilizing their variant of Unix (a competing technology), trapped relatively quickly. The reasons with this lie not in the underlying technology, in how these products made possible by those technologies were brought to market (free vs. walled garden, etc.) and the differences in the strategic visions of each company.https://arstechnician.com/
Evolutionary technology is the one which incrementally builds upon the base revolutionary technology. But by it's very nature, the incremental change is easier for a competitor to complement or leapfrog. Take for example wireless cellphone technology. Company V introduced 4G products just before Company A and while it might have experienced a brief term advantage, the moment Company A introduced their 4G products, the bonus as a result of technology disappeared. The buyer went back to choosing Company A or Company V centered on price, service, coverage, whatever, although not centered on technology. Thus technology might have been relevant in the short term, in the future, became irrelevant.https://techwaa.com/
In today's world, technologies have a tendency to swiftly become commoditized, and within any particular technology lies the seeds of its death.
Technology's Relevance
This article was written from the prospective of an end customer. From a developer/designer standpoint things get murkier. The further one is removed from the technology, the less relevant it becomes. To a developer, the technology will look such as for instance a product. An enabling product, but an item nonetheless, and thus it's highly relevant. Bose runs on the proprietary signal processing technology allow products that meet a couple of market requirements and thus the technology and what it enables is relevant to them. https://techsitting.com/ Their customers are more worried about how it sounds, what's the cost, what's the product quality, etc., and less with how it's achieved, thus the technology used is a lot less relevant to them.
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