What is Technology?
Merriam-Webster defines it as:
1
a: the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area: engineering 2
b: a capacity written by the practical application of knowledge
Both definitions revolve around the same thing - application and usage.
Technology is definitely an enabler
Lots of people mistakenly believe that 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. Consider the classic "Build an improved mousetrap" example taught in many business schools. It's likely you have the technology to create an improved mousetrap, but if you have no mice or the old mousetrap is effective, there's no opportunity and then a technology to create an improved one becomes irrelevant. On the other hand, if you're overrun with mice then a opportunity exists to innovate something utilizing your technology.
Another example, one with which I'm intimately familiar, are consumer electronics startup companies. I've been related to both the ones that succeeded and the ones that failed. Each possessed unique leading edge technologies. The difference was opportunity. Those who failed couldn't find the chance to produce a meaningful innovation using their technology. In reality to survive, these companies had to morph oftentimes into something completely different and if they certainly were lucky they may make the most of derivatives of their original technology. More regularly than not, the original technology wound up in the scrap heap. Technology, thus, is definitely an enabler whose ultimate value proposition is to make improvements to the lives. To be able to be relevant, it must be properly used to generate innovations that are driven by opportunity.
Technology as a competitive advantage?
Many companies list a technology together of their competitive advantages. Is this valid? Sometimes 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 methods to problems that have been previously not possible. Semiconductor technology is an excellent example. Not merely made it happen 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 numerous companies, but you've Intel, AMD, ARM, and a number of companies building custom quad core processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, not much of a competitive advantage. Competition from competing technologies and easy access to IP mitigates the perceived competitive advantageous asset of any particular technology. Android vs iOS is an excellent exemplory case of how this works. Both os's are derivatives of UNIX. Apple used their technology to introduce iOS and gained an early market advantage. However, Google, utilizing their variant of Unix (a competing technology), caught up relatively quickly. The reasons for 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 every company.
Evolutionary technology is one which incrementally builds upon the bottom revolutionary technology. But by it is extremely nature, the incremental change is simpler for a competitor to match or leapfrog. Take like wireless cellphone technology. Company V introduced 4G products prior to Company A and while it could have experienced a brief term advantage, the moment Company A introduced their 4G products, the advantage because of technology disappeared. The customer returned to choosing Company A or Company V based on price, service, coverage, whatever, but not based on technology. Thus technology may have been relevant in the short-term, in the long term, became irrelevant.
In today's world, technologies have a tendency to quickly become commoditized, and within any particular technology lies the seeds of its death.
Technology's Relevance
This short article was written from the prospective of an end customer. From a developer/designer standpoint things get murkier. The further one is taken off the technology, the less relevant it becomes. To a developer, the technology will look such as a product. An enabling product, but something nonetheless, and thus it's highly relevant. Bose runs on the proprietary signal processing technology to enable products that meet a couple of market requirements and thus the technology and what it enables is strongly related them. Their clients are more worried about how it sounds, what's the cost, what's the quality, etc., and less with how it's achieved, thus the technology used is significantly less strongly related them.
Recently, I was involved in a discussion on Google+ about the newest Motorola X phone. Lots of the folks on those posts slammed the device for various reasons Technology - price, locked boot loader, etc. There were also lots of knocks on the fact it didn't have a quad-core processor like the S4 or HTC The one that were priced similarly. What they failed to understand is that whether the maker used 1, 2, 4, or 8 cores ultimately makes no difference so long as the device can deliver a competitive (or even best of class) feature set, functionality, price, and user experience. The iPhone is one of the most successful phones ever produced, and yet it runs on a dual-core processor. It still delivers one of the best user experiences on the market. The features that are enabled by the technology are what are strongly related the consumer, not the technology itself.
The relevance of technology therefore, is being an enabler, never as something feature or perhaps a competitive advantage, or any myriad of other items - an enabler. Considering the Android operating system, it's an extraordinary software program technology, and yet Google gives it away. Why? Because standalone, it will nothing for Google. Giving it away allows other individuals to utilize their expertise to create products and services which in turn act as enablers for Google's products and services. To Google, that's where the actual value is.
