The_Innovators_Dilemma__Clayton

its major customers and replace the lost revenues with sales of the new product line to an entirely
different group of desktop computer makers. Mabon remembers the experience as the most exhausting
of his life.
Micropolis finally introduced a 3.5-inch product in 1993. That was the point at which the product had
progressed to pack more than 1 gigabyte in the 3.5-inch platform. At that level, Micropolis could sell
the 3.5-inch drive to its existing customers.
Figure 5.1 Technology Transition and Market Position at Micropolis Corporation
Source: Data are from various issues of Disk/Trend Report.
DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE THEORY OF RESOURCE DEPENDENCE
The struggles recounted earlier of Seagate Technology’s attempts to sell 3.5-inch drives and of Bucyrus
Erie’s failed attempt to sell its early Hydrohoe only to its mainstream customers illustrate how the
theory of resource dependence can be applied to cases of disruptive technologies. In both instances,
Seagate and Bucyrus were among the first in their industries to develop these disruptive products. But
despite senior managers’ decisions to introduce them, the impetus or organizational energy required to
launch the products aggressively into the appropriate value networks simply did not coalesce—until
customers needed them.
Should we then accept the corollary stipulated by resource-dependence theorists that managers are
merely powerless individuals? Hardly. In the Introduction, exploring the image of how people learned
to fly, I noted that all attempts had ended in failure as long as they consisted of fighting fundamental
laws of nature. But once laws such as gravity, Bernoulli’s principle, and the notions of lift, drag and
resistance began to be understood, and flying machines were designed that accounted for or harnessed
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