Companies must constantly innovate or they will lose market share and be passed by their competition. What the consumer sees and feels is the user interface and affordances of the device.
One of the current issues with technology is that the Personal Computer industry is not innovating (with the exception of Apple). My prediction is that if the PC industry does not start innovating, the PC will morph into new products offered by the competition and the industry leaders, Dell, HP, etc, will lose market share. I found that this opinion was recently supported by Rich Templeton, the CEO of Texas Instruments in a recent interview. TI supplies chips to these segments of the industry. Mr. Templeton is right in the middle of this market.
 [Rich Templeton] ... And I put that up there in contrast with the PC industry. PC companies invest what amount of their revenue in R&D?
[Interviewer] The biggest ones, not very much.
[Rich Templeton] The fact is, if it's a point or a point and a half, that's very little. And so when people sit back and ask why there isn't anything new, it ought to be an obvious answer. The PC companies aren't investing. When I say I think it's wonderful that there are companies like Apple (AAPL) investing in R&D, improving the user interface, new features, [and] companies like Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola all working on R&D, that's all good stuff because when those people are doing that, it's going to lead to new ideas and growth. And the last time I checked, chip companies can't grow if the people they sell to are not growing accordingly.
[And engineers can't grow if their companies are not growing. - Damon ] |