InfoWorld: The Disaster of Success

[ Thanks to Jason
Greenwood for this link. ]

“It’s amazing. Businesses work so hard to become the top dog.
They become the leaders in their fields. And then the unthinkable
happens: In a jealous effort to guard their position, they lock
themselves out of new business and technological paradigms, sealing
their fate. In their fervor to protect their position, they destroy
it. And new, unfettered business models rise into prominence…

“This became clear to me a few years ago at a conference. A
European attendee showed me an all-in-one cell phone, PDA, and
wireless Internet device. He had been using it for about two years.
Only now, about four years after he began using his useful gizmo,
am I starting to see comparable devices in this country.

“Why? Well, in the United States, cellular technology is being
championed by many of the large companies responsible for the
overwhelming success of the old wired technology. These companies
are too busy milking profits from the old wired infrastructure to
invalidate it through massive deployment of a wireless
infrastructure. The net result is that these companies are reaping
profits while the rest of the world passes them–and us, their
customers–by…”

Complete Story