Lecture Nine--ICS 131--Fall 2000--23 Oct 00
Deutsch, Claudia H., et al. The Fading Copier King: Xerox has failed to capitalize on it own innovations, NY Times, 19 Oct 00, C1, C20 (R)
Coy, Peter. The Myth of Corporate Reinvention: The key is knowing when to give up--and just spin off the sexier parts of the business, BW, 30 Oct 00, 80-82.(R)
Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator's Dilemma, _____(O)
Greene, Jay. Microsoft's Big Bet. BW, 30 Oct 00, 152-163(R)
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Review of Lecture Eight--E-tailing
Future of e-tailing--combination of bricks and clicks
might be better than pure plays--two examples
Responsibility of web sites to protect consumers from fraud
Responsibility of e-tailers in cases of pricing errors
New ideas- •sell software developed for in-house applications
•figure out how to cope with e-tailing problems, e.g.,
can't try on clothes
Lecture Nine
How do organizations cope with major changes in technology?
Scenario
•Company has a product
•Knows how to make it, sell it, service it, improve it
•Company is successful
•New technology comes along
•Have to decide how to cope with new technology
Three recent example of problems in coping
Xerox--The copier company wants to shift to
printers,
outsourcing,
high-end publishing
solutions company--
designs and runs document systems for companies
AT&T--The telephone company
(manufactured, installed, and operated
telephone networks) wants to get into
broadband networks via cable
Kodak--the color film in the yellow box company wants to shift to
digital photo business
While each of these examples has individual characteristics,
they have some things in common with each other and with
other companies in this situation
1. Talented management
2. Access to high quality research
Why are they having problems?
"Cultures prevent them from seizing
opportunities to undermine the status quo"
Can't break away from old technology and
continue to serve core customers and
keep profits high
The technologies are disruptive
not good enough for core customers
nor profitable enough for shareholders
using money, but not generating revenue
competing with needs of installed base
threat to people working on core business
So the new kid on the block comes in and
knocks off the new technology
What should these companies do?
BW's solution
Spin off the new technology.
Let it fend for itself and
not compete with the core business
(What about BW online?)
NY Times' version of Xerox problems
•Didn't take advantage of PARC developments
GUI (apple, m/s), ethernet (3 com), printing software (adobe)
ubiquitous computing
•Made changes to sales force organization
•Didn't keep up with copier technology
The Microsoft Dilemma
How can M/S move from
a PC/Windows based operation
to a net-based service operation?
M/S has done a couple of 'net' things, Explorer, MSN, websites
but the core business is still selling applications and O/S for PC's
But the PC business is falling off,
so what to do
Rejects notion of converting M/S to a network business.
What should M/S do?
The .Net approach
The anti-trust action complicates things
Successful coping stories
Logistics
Quiz 1 Scores
Wednesday--Problems
Week 5 Schedule
Optional readings:
Landler, Mark. A Filipino linked to 'love bug' talks about his license to hack, NY Times, 21 Oct 00, B1, B2
Piller, Charles. The place that tech forgot,
LA Times, 19 Oct 00, A1, A34, A35
Boxall, Bettina. Bay area cities try to stem dot-com tide,
LA Times, 19 Oct 00, A3, A32