Eh. I found it to be more shallow than he accuses The Innovator's Dilemma to be ... in fact, I'm not even sure the author really understands the concepts, like the difference between technologies and products. E.g. in the iPhone the ARM processor is a classic disruptive technology, and to this date Intel has yet to scratch its dominance.
He also leaves out stuff that's in the book, like it includes studies of at least one other industry, motorbikes, and the data Christensen had collected on hard disk drives was very very solid, a truly great datapoint. That was an area I also followed for almost all of the period studied, albeit not as thoroughly.
If you've not read the book, I wouldn't even bother with this article.
I'm hoping that you were not the one who down-voted a my perfectly legitimate point of view.
I agree with you that there is a little bit of a straw man attack going on here...if you haven't read Christensen's book. That being said, the author does present a number of cases in which Christensen's theory does not seem to apply. The general piece of advice that many people take from the Innovator's Dilemma is the idea of entering at the low end of the market where well-established firms will not compete with you. You can innovate in a much more narrow area with a small team and survive off of thin margins as you continue improving your value proposition. This is a very nice idea, but it is most certainly not some sort of universal formula for making money. I think the author of the article brings out some interesting cases of where this breaks down.
As far as the ARM processor...I'm not quite sure how that relates to Christensen's thesis that disruptive innovation enters at the lower end of the market and moves up. The ARM processor is most definitely an example of a sustaining innovation. Of course you could make the claim that the ARM processor allowed for a significant software advantage at a still reasonable cost, still fulfilling Christensen's thesis. I think that would be a weak argument and the rational error contained within is rather visible to any who was alive when the iPhone was released.
In any case, the article was well composed even if you disagree with his thesis. I didn't not comment that I felt as though this article was a masterpiece that was going destroy the Innovator's Dilemma. I simply enjoyed the article and thought the contrarian point of view was thought-provoking. In addition, the article did not claim to be an overview and rehashing of Christensen's entire thesis. He made very clear at the outset that he was summarizing Christensen's perspective. Hence, if you didn't like the article, fine. However, it annoys me that my innocent comment expressing enjoyment is discarded as if it were written without thought or consideration.
