Saturday, August 09, 2003

Rapid Diffusion is the Key to Success. An expensive resource (exres) that is essential to only a few will be displaced by an inexpensive resource (inres) that is essential (or very useful) to many, even if the inres lacks some of the features of the exres. Examples: Internet, Web, Ethernet, IA-32, Linux. The inres will diffuse more broadly and rapidly, and the larger market will drive down costs of production. The unique features of the exres will then be ported to the inres, when the cost of the exres exceeds the cost of the port plus the cost of the inres. Visually this looks like a stovepipe in the first frame and in the second frame, a wide base with a shorter stovepipe (both which reach the same height as the first frame). How to represent the lower cost of the second frame? Since market size and cost are highly correlated, use the horizontal axis for both. 7:05:51 AM