In an interview with the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, he commented that we are heading into the PostPC era where people stop using their home computers for life for much simpler computers based on smartphone technology. .
The disruptive innovation process
In fact, Jobs was indirectly citing the late Clayton Christensen, who invented the theory of revolutionary innovations or theory. The idea behind this theory is that every now and then technologies emerge that do the same job as existing ones, but in a more accessible way. Two historical examples of breakthrough innovation with the car, which ended up completely replacing horse carts, and digital cameras, which replaced reel cameras.
Christensen claimed that the reason why companies in the tech sector are falling from the absolute top to be completely replaced. The reason is that manufacturers who already have a consolidated product in the market do not believe that there is a need to reconsider a new solution or a more accessible version than the existing solution, which is the one they are selling.
The peculiarity of breakthrough innovations is that they are not born from a market study or from consumer demand, so they are generally not predictable, in addition, they start with very low specifications so they are not not to the taste of the party. the most demanding and enthusiastic on the market.
The theory claims that as new iterations of disruptive innovation emerge, it moves more and more in the marketplace, replacing the technology it supplants in consumption. However, this is not always the case and in most cases it does not happen due to the fact that the entire process does not happen, especially when the technology that constitutes the disruptive innovation is not. not good enough.
Does the breaking process happen on the PC?
If Steve Jobs’ claim made by Steve Jobs in his day was true, then PostPC devices would have completely replaced the traditional PC, but that’s not how it turned out.
The reason? Hardware is nothing more than the tool we use to run software, and as long as the programs we use every day require the hardware we have in our PCs, they will not be replaced in their daily use and will continue to be sold.
The process of replacing the PC with the PostPC devices has not and will not happen until the hardware of the PostPC devices is designed for much lower power consumption, making the power of the PostPC devices less than that of the PCs of a lifetime.