Competition in the Digital Age
While "disruption" is a word often abused and certainly given a virtue that it does not seem to deserve, the phrase "disruptive technologies" that started it all was actually more precise. Clay Christensen wrote that: Generally, disruptive innovations were technologically straightforward, consisting of off-the-shelf components put together in a product architecture that was often simpler …
Continue reading "Do disruptive technologies really overturn market leadership?"
As part of a potential new series on The Enlightened Manager, Slate has published an article of mine on the effect moving to online ordering had on pizza orders. One great thing about the Internet, of course, is that the crowd can identify things I had trouble with. For instance, in writing the article I …
Continue reading "Shy Slices: How online ordering facilitates a long tail in pizza types"
One of the popular forms of price discrimination for software services/platforms these days is freemium. This is where there is a free product offered alongside a premium product. For online storage and backup, this has been a familiar strategy used by start-ups such as a Dropbox but also established firms such as Google, Microsoft and …
Matt Yglesias weighed in to the whole "how does the Star Trek economy work" thing. This followed on a long piece by Rick Webb. I think when it comes to juxtaposing knowledge of economics and knowledge of Star Trek, I am in some position of authority here so I had better put in my two …
Amazon is the supposed enemy of the Mom and Pop independent bookstore. Well, no longer. Amazon Source will give independent bookstore owners 10 percent of the revenue from future book sales on any Kindle device they sell their customers. This is a brilliant move. It is also available to chains. The long standing complaint from …
I discovered that our University had a site license to Windows 8.1 and Office 2013 so I decided to load them up on a virtual machine on my Mac. What I discovered was a very Apple product. The narrative on Windows 8 is that it was a divided operating system trying to combine touch and …
In a New York Times piece entitled "Slaves of the Internet, Unite!" writer, Tim Kreider, revisits a theme common amongst writers -- particular writers now of my age-vintage -- that they do not like being asked to contribute pieces for free. His argument is two-fold. First, why isn't it a breach of appropriate social norms to …
Continue reading "Free content supply and the slavery charge"
Two days ago, Apple announced this year's line up of iPads. The new iPads are 64 bit, have Retina display screens and are light (well the iPad Mini is a little heavier but it is not bigger and does have a better screen). This was all expected. What was unexpected was that Apple did not …
Continue reading "Is the iPad 2 the greatest tech product ever?"
While the US was distracted in its negotiations over whether to have a government, the health insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov, launched. It was beset by technical issues. Put simply, it couldn't handle the load. This isn't surprising. The right way to design a site like this is for robustness in on-going use -- that is, for …
Continue reading "HealthCare.gov really is the purest political failure"
I am pretty sure that Harvard Business School spends some time teaching its students about Google's "Don't be evil" business statement. While I am also pretty sure that it doesn't take it at face value, I would be very surprised if it challenged not being evil as a worthy goal. If their attempts to introduce …
Continue reading "Harvard Business School Publishing crosses the 'evil' academic line"
Digitopoly 