On Jul 05, 2013, at 10:13 AM, John F Sowa wrote:
Then Steve Jobs copied it as the Mac in 1984, but it required
Bill Gates & Co. to copy it as Windows 3.1 to make it the universal
GUI for computers. That development took more than 20 years.
Are there lessons we can learn from these developments?
I'd observe that working from a blank sheet of paper takes at least 20 years to get something to the beginnings of widespread adoption.
We're long past green fields/blank sheet of paper in databases, information systems, etc.
As has been mentioned repeatedly here, something "new" has precisely 0% chance of replacing something already in place. If the "new" builds on top of and compliments legacy systems, then there may be uptake on the "new" thing.
Said another way... if there's a large installed base, something "new" claiming to be vastly superior to the installed base because of "superior" technology, likely isn't going anywhere. Organizations already have too much technology requiring too much expensive maintenance & just do not have the bandwidth to embrace complex new toys.
It's a little hard for many folks to grok, but without decades old mainframe billing/provisioning systems, iPhones wouldn't be the ubiquitous consumer device they have become.
How long did it take DragonSpeaking(?) take to become popular as Siri? At least 20 years, with massive fraud & bankruptcy thrown in along the way.
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David Eddy