Relevance of Technology
Many companies point to technology as one of their competitive advantages. Is it legitimate? In some cases yes, but in most cases no. Technology evolves along two paths – an evolutionary path and a revolutionary path. A revolutionary technology is one that can support new industries or solve problems that were previously impossible. Semiconductor technology is a good example. It gave rise not only to new industries and products, but also to other revolutionary technologies – transistor technology, integrated circuit technology, microprocessor technology. All of them provide many of the products and services we use today. But is semiconductor technology a competitive advantage? Given the number of semiconductor companies that exist today (new companies are being formed every day), I would say no. What about microprocessor technology? Again, no. There are many microprocessor companies. What about quad-core microprocessor technology? There aren't many companies, but you d...