Disruptive technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Disruptive technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Disruptive technology From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia • Ten things you didn't know about Wikipedia • Jump to: navigation, search A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is a technological innovation, product, or service that eventually overturns the dominance of existing technology or status quo products in the market. Disruptive innovations can be broadly classified into lower-end and new-market disruptive innovations. A new-market disruptive innovation is often aimed at non-consumption, whereas a lower-end disruptive innovation is aimed at mainstream customers who were ignored by established companies. Sometimes, a disruptive technology comes to dominate an existing market by either filling a role in a new market that the older technology could not fill (as more expensive, lower capacity but smaller-sized hard disks did for newly developed notebook computers in the 1980s) or by successively moving up-market through performance improvements until finally displacing the market incumbents (as digital photography has begun to replace film photography). The concept shares many similarities with biological evolution. By contrast, 'sustaining technology or innovation' improves product performance of established products. Sustaining technologies are often incremental; however, they can also be radical or discontinuous."