Think about tablets. In iPad, Android, webOS or Windows form, cramming substantial processing power into a touch sensitive form factor with long battery life makes them non-redundant to a notebook PC, complimentary in terms of what they can do, and a true innovation in the form factor, materials and underlying infrastructure (app stores) to make them work. It's not surprising to me they've been very successful very quickly. Netbooks on the other hand were too redundant to a standard notebook and while complementary to supporting technologies did not really break any new ground.
Some technologies can go from a poor score to a better one as the product evolves. Skype has gained a lot of traction in the last few years as quality has increased to a such an extent it's no longer redundant to just picking up the phone or using a much, much higher end video conferencing solution. It has also become much more complimentary as more cameras are embedded in more and more devices capable of running Skype.
Cloud computing is complementary to existing hardware but has high redundancy to existing on premise data centers. Where it boosts its score is by packaging computing power as a service, a utility creating an entirely new opportunity. Many SaaS offerings had similar characteristics highly complementary, high redundancy but the implementation made them successful.
In using the model ask three questions:
- Does the product or service use existing infrastructure, training, knowledge
- Is the product or service merely a replacement for something already firmly established
- Does it make a true leap either in the technology used or the way its implemented
Add them up and you'll identify potential winners and losers.
