S-Curves II - Business Strategy Portal from Franteractive

S-Curves Part II

. . . Continued from S-Curves Part I

When one technology is maturing, a newer and similar technology is fermenting underneath it. However, the mature technology does not take notice of this newer technology, because the newer technology is below the mature and stagnating one in terms of technology adoption. What the stagnating technology does not know is that the fermenting technolgy is actually causing the genesis of a technology disruption. In the following figure, Linux is shown to be disrupting Sun Solaris:

As shown in the figure above, once Linux takes off, it pulls ahead by leaps and bounds over Solaris in terms of technology adoption. When this happens, it becomes clear that Solaris has indeed stagnated. However, there will come a time when Linux itself will mature and reach the head of its own S-curve, at which point it will stagnate, and some other operating system will disrupt it.