Technology is an enabler
Many people 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 better mousetrap" example taught in most business schools. You may have the technology to create a better mousetrap, but when you have no mice or the old mousetrap is useful, there is no opportunity and then the technology to create a better one becomes irrelevant. On the other hand, if you are overrun with mice then the opportunity exists to innovate something making use of your technology.
Another example, one with which I am intimately familiar, are consumer electronics startup companies. I've been connected with 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 chance to develop a meaningful innovation employing their technology. In reality to survive, these companies had to morph oftentimes into something totally different and if they were lucky they may take advantage of derivatives of these original technology. http://yourtechcrunch.com/ More regularly than not, the initial technology wound up in the scrap heap. Technology, thus, is an enabler whose ultimate value proposition is to produce improvements to your lives. In order to be relevant, it must be used to generate innovations that are driven by opportunity.
Technology as a competitive advantage?
Many companies list a technology together of these 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 one which enables new industries or enables solutions to problems that have been previously not possible. Semiconductor technology is an excellent example. Not only did it spawn new industries and products, nonetheless it spawned other revolutionary technologies - transistor technology, integrated circuit technology, microprocessor technology. All which provide lots of the products and services we consume today. But is semiconductor technology a competitive advantage? Looking at how many semiconductor firms that exist today (with new ones forming every day), I'd say not. What about microprocessor technology? Again, no. Lots of microprocessor companies out there. What about quad core microprocessor technology? Not as numerous companies, but you've Intel, AMD, ARM, and a bunch of companies building custom quad core processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, not much of a competitive advantage. Competition from competing technologies and comfortable access to IP mitigates the perceived competitive advantage of any particular technology. Android vs iOS is an excellent example of how this works. Both os's are derivatives of UNIX. Apple used their technology to introduce iOS and gained an early on market advantage. However, Google, utilizing their variant of Unix (a competing technology), swept up relatively quickly. The reason why with this lie not in the underlying technology, but 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 one which incrementally builds upon the base revolutionary technology. But by it's very nature, the incremental change is easier for a competitor to fit or leapfrog. Take as an example wireless cellphone technology. Company V introduced 4G products ahead of Company A and while it may experienced a quick term advantage, as soon as Company A introduced their 4G products, the advantage due to technology disappeared. The consumer went back to choosing Company A or Company V predicated on price, service, coverage, whatever, although not predicated on technology. Thus technology could have been relevant in the short term, but in the long term, became irrelevant.https://techwaa.com/
In today's world, technologies tend to quickly become commoditized, and within any particular technology lies the seeds of a unique death.
Technology's Relevance
This informative article was written from the prospective of an end customer. From the 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 like a product. An enabling product, but something nonetheless, and thus it is highly relevant. Bose works on the proprietary signal processing technology allow products that meet a set of market requirements and thus the technology and what it enables is relevant to them. https://techsitting.com/ Their clients are more worried about how it sounds, what's the price, what's the product quality, etc., and not really much with how it is achieved, thus the technology used is significantly less relevant to them.
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