What Is the Relevance of Technology?

"Technology in the long-run is irrelevant". That is what a customer of mine told me once i made a presentation to him about a new product. I used to be talking about the product's features and benefits and listed "state-of-the-art technology" or something to that result, as one of them. That is when this individual made his statement. My spouse and i realized later that this individual was correct, at least within the context demonstrating how I used "Technology" during my presentation. But My spouse and i commenced thinking about whether he could be right in other contexts as well.

What is Technology?

Merriam-Webster defines it as:

1

a: the functional application of knowledge specially in a particular area: design 2  <medical technology>

m: a capability given by the program of knowledge  <a car's fuel-saving technology>

2

: a manner of accomplishing a job especially using complex processes, methods, or knowledge

3

: the specialized aspects of a certain field of endeavor  <educational technology>

Wikipedia defines it as:

Technology (from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia[1] is the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and methods of organization, as a way to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, acquire a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or execute a specific function. It can also label the collection of such tools, including machinery, adjustments, arrangements and procedures. Solutions significantly affect human as well as other dog species' ability to control and adapt to their natural environments. The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: these include construction technology, medical technology, and information technology.

Both definitions tools meant to around the same thing - application and use.

Technology is an enabler

Many people mistakenly imagine it is technology which drives innovation. Yet from the definitions above, that is evidently not the case. It can be opportunity which defines innovation and technology which permits innovation. Believe of the classic "Build an improved mousetrap" example trained in most business universities. You may have the technology to build an improved mousetrap, but if you have zero rats or the old mousetrap works well, there is no opportunity and then the technology to build an improved one becomes less relevant. However, if you are full of mice then the ability exists to improve a product making use of your technology.

Another example, one with which I am thoroughly familiar, are consumer electronic products startup companies. I've recently been associated with those that succeeded and those that failed. Each possessed unique leading edge technologies. The difference was opportunity. Individuals that failed wasn't able to find the possibility to produce an important innovation using their technology. In fact to make it through, these companies was required to contort oftentimes into something totally different and if they were lucky they could take good thing about derivatives of their original technology. Most of the time, the original technology injury up in the discard heap. Technology, thus, is an enabler whose ultimate value proposition is to make improvements to lifestyle. In order to be relevant, it needs to be used to create innovations that are motivated by opportunity.

Technology as a competitive advantage?

Various companies list a technology as one of their competitive advantages. Is this valid? Sometimes yes, but In most cases amount

Technology develops along two paths - an major path and a cutting edge path.

A new technology is one which permits new industries or permits solutions to problems that were previously not possible. Semiconductor technology is an excellent example. Not only would it spawn new companies and products, but it spawned other revolutionary solutions - transistor technology, involved circuit technology, microprocessor technology. All which provide many of the products and services we consume today. But is semiconductor technology a competitive advantage? Searching at the quantity of semiconductor companies that exist today (with new ones forming every day), I'd say not. How about microprocessor technology? Again, no. Lots of microprocessor companies out there. What about quad core processor technology? Not as many companies, but you have Intel, AMD, ARM, and a host of companies building custom quad main processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, not much of a competitive advantage. Competition from competitive technologies and easy gain access to IP mitigates the perceived competitive good thing about any particular technology. Android versus iOS is an excellent example of how this works. Equally operating systems are derivatives of UNIX. Apple used their technology to expose iOS and gained an earlier market advantage. However, Yahoo, utilizing their variant of Unix (a competing technology), involved relatively quickly. The reasons with this lie not in the underlying technology, but in how a products made possible by those technologies were brought to market (free vs. walled garden, etc. ) and the dissimilarities in the strategic visions of each company.

Evolutionary technology is one which incrementally develops on the base ground-breaking technology. But by it is extremely nature, the incremental change is easier for a competitor to match or leapfrog. Take for occasion wireless cellphone technology. Business V introduced 4G products prior to Company A and while it might have a new short term advantage, as soon as Company A introduced their 4G products, the benefits due to technology faded away. The consumer returned to choosing Company A or Company V based on price, service, coverage, whatever, although not based on technology. Thus technology might have been relevant in the short term, however in the long term, became less relevant.

Today, technologies tend to quickly become commoditized, and within any particular technology lies the seeds of its own death.

Technology's Relevance

This article was written from the potential of the ending customer. From a developer/designer standpoint things get murkier. The further you are removed from the technology, the less relevant it becomes. Into a creator, the technology will consider like a product. A great enabling product, but a product nonetheless, and therefore it is highly relevant. Bose uses a proprietary transmission processing technology to permit products that meet some market requirements and therefore the technology and what it permits is relevant to them. Their customers will be more worried with how it seems, what's the price, exactly what is the quality, and so forth, and not so much with how it is achieved, thus the technology used is significantly less relevant to them.

Just lately, I was involved in a discussion on Google+ about the new Motorola X phone. Most of the people on those posts reprehended the phone for various reasons - price, locked boot loader, etc. There was also plenty of knocks and bumps on the fact that it didn't have a quad-core processor like the S4 or HTC A single which were priced in the same way. What they failed to grasp is the reality whether the manufacturer used 1, 2, 4, or 8 cores in the finish makes no big difference given that the phone can deliver a competitive (or even best of class) feature set, functionality, price, and user experience. The iPhone is one of the very most successful phones ever produced, and yet it operates over a dual-core processor. This still gives one of the better consumer encounters on the market. The features that are enabled by the technology are what are relevant to the buyer, not the technology itself.

The benefits of technology therefore, is as an enabler, not as a product feature or a competitive benefit, or any type of myriad of other things - an enabler. Searching at the Android working system, it is an impressive computer software technology, and yet Google provides it with away. Why? Mainly because standalone, it does little or nothing for Google. Giving it away allows others to use their expertise to make products and services which then become enablers for Google's companies services. To Google, that's where the real value is.

The possession of or use of a technology is merely very important to what it allows you to do - create innovations which solve problems. That is the real relevance of technology.

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