Technology is an enabler
Many people mistakenly believe that it is technology which drives innovation. Yet from the definitions above, that is actually not the case. It's opportunity which defines innovation and technology which enables innovation. Consider the classic "Build a much better mousetrap" example taught in many business schools. You may have the technology to create a much better mousetrap, but when you have no mice or the old mousetrap is useful, there is no opportunity and then a technology to create a much better one becomes irrelevant. On another hand, if you are overrun with mice then a opportunity exists to innovate something utilizing your technology.
Another example, one with which I am intimately familiar, are electronic devices startup companies. I've been related to both those that succeeded and those that failed. Each possessed unique leading edge technologies. The difference was opportunity. Those who failed could not find the chance to produce a meaningful innovation utilizing their technology. In reality to survive, these companies had to morph oftentimes into something totally different and if they were lucky they could make the most of derivatives of the original technology. http://yourtechcrunch.com/ More often than not, the initial technology wound up in the scrap heap. Technology, thus, is an enabler whose ultimate value proposition is to produce improvements to your lives. In order to be relevant, it needs to be used to produce innovations which can be driven by opportunity.
Technology as a competitive advantage?
Many companies list a technology as you of the competitive advantages. Is this valid? In some instances yes, but In most cases no.
Technology develops along two paths - an evolutionary path and a revolutionary path.
A revolutionary technology is the one which enables new industries or enables methods to problems that were previously not possible. Semiconductor technology is an excellent example. Not merely did it spawn new industries and products, however it spawned other revolutionary technologies - transistor technology, integrated circuit technology, microprocessor technology. All which provide many of the products and services we consume today. But is semiconductor technology a competitive advantage? Considering how many semiconductor companies that exist today (with new ones forming every day), I'd say not. What about microprocessor technology? Again, no. Plenty of microprocessor companies out there. What about quad core microprocessor technology? Not as numerous companies, but you've Intel, AMD, ARM, and a bunch of companies building custom quad core processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, very little 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 example of how this works. Both operating systems 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), swept up relatively quickly. The reasons for this lie not in the underlying technology, but in how the products made possible by those technologies were brought to promote (free vs. walled garden, etc.) and the differences in the strategic visions of every company.https://arstechnician.com/
Evolutionary technology is the one which incrementally builds upon the bottom revolutionary technology. But by it's very nature, the incremental change is simpler for a competitor to complement or leapfrog. Take like wireless cellphone technology. Company V introduced 4G products prior to Company A and while it might experienced a short term advantage, when Company A introduced their 4G products, the bonus as a result of technology disappeared. The buyer returned to choosing Company A or Company V based on price, service, coverage, whatever, however not based on technology. Thus technology may have been relevant in the short-term, but in the long run, became irrelevant.https://techwaa.com/
In today's world, technologies often 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 a finish customer. From the 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 like a product. An enabling product, but something nonetheless, and thus it's highly relevant. Bose uses a proprietary signal processing technology allow products that meet some market requirements and thus the technology and what it enables is relevant to them. https://techsitting.com/ Their clients are more worried about how it sounds, what's the price, what's the product quality, etc., and not really much with how it's achieved, thus the technology used is much less relevant to them.
