Much like Keynes’ [amazon_link id=“1169831990” target=“_blank” ]The General Theory Of Employment Interest And Money (1936)[/amazon_link] sketched the general picture of macroeconomics, leaving the hard-work of figuring the concrete equations and their variable estimation to the then nascent field of macroeconomics, Christensen’s [amazon_link id=“0060521996” target=“_blank” ]The Innovator’s Dilemma[/amazon_link] derived an acclaimed general theory of innovation through real-world examples, initiating a very fertile ground for modelling and quantification. And the following paper is the first to tackle the problem of creating a fully detailed innovation model around the canonical case of incumbent’s delay.
The most interesting part is the measurement of four different forces that determine the incumbent-entrant timing gap in technology adoption, next in their actual order of importance: the very significant option value of waiting; a smaller cannibalization’s effect; and trivial sunk-cost advantages over entrants and preemption motives for this issue, but strong determinants of innovation and evolution.
And what’s more important, the absolute relevance of this very same case and models to the modern evolution of drives towards SSD and hybrid technologies.