Technology can be an enabler
Many individuals mistakenly believe it is technology which drives innovation. Yet from the definitions above, that is clearly not the case. It is opportunity which defines innovation and technology which enables innovation. Think of the classic "Build a better mousetrap" example taught in most business schools. It's likely you have the technology to construct a better mousetrap, but if you have no mice or the old mousetrap is useful, there's no opportunity and then a technology to construct a better one becomes irrelevant. On one other hand, if you are overrun with mice then a opportunity exists to innovate a product making use of your technology.
Another example, one with which I'm intimately familiar, are consumer electronics startup companies. I've been connected with both the ones that succeeded and the ones that failed. Each possessed unique leading edge technologies. The difference was opportunity. Those that failed could not find the chance to produce a meaningful innovation using their technology. Actually to survive, these companies had to morph oftentimes into something completely different and if these were lucky they could take advantage of derivatives of their original technology. http://yourtechcrunch.com/ More regularly than not, the initial technology wound up in the scrap heap. Technology, thus, can be an enabler whose ultimate value proposition is to create improvements to the lives. In order to be relevant, it needs to be used to produce innovations that are driven by opportunity.
Technology as a competitive advantage?
Many companies list a technology as one of their competitive advantages. Is this valid? Sometimes yes, but Generally no.
Technology develops along two paths - an evolutionary path and a revolutionary path.
A revolutionary technology is one which enables new industries or enables methods to problems which were previously not possible. Semiconductor technology is a great example. Not just made it happen spawn new industries and products, but it spawned other revolutionary technologies - transistor technology, integrated circuit technology, microprocessor technology. All which provide lots of the products and services we consume today. But is semiconductor technology a competitive advantage? Looking at the number of semiconductor firms that exist today (with new ones forming every day), I'd say not. What about microprocessor technology? Again, no. Lots of microprocessor companies out there. What about quad core microprocessor technology? Not as numerous companies, but you have Intel, AMD, ARM, and a bunch of companies building custom quad core processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, very little of a competitive advantage. Competition from competing technologies and easy access to IP mitigates the perceived competitive benefit of any particular technology. Android vs iOS is a great exemplory case of how this works. Both operating systems are derivatives of UNIX. Apple used their technology to introduce iOS and gained an early market advantage. However, Google, utilizing their variant of Unix (a competing technology), swept up relatively quickly. The reason why with this lie not in the underlying technology, but in how these products made possible by those technologies were brought to promote (free vs. walled garden, etc.) and the differences in the strategic visions of every company.https://arstechnician.com/
Evolutionary technology is one which incrementally builds upon the beds base revolutionary technology. But by it's very nature, the incremental change now is easier for a competitor to complement or leapfrog. Take as an example wireless cellphone technology. Company V introduced 4G products ahead of Company A and while it could have had a short term advantage, as soon as Company A introduced their 4G products, the bonus as a result of technology disappeared. The consumer went back to choosing Company A or Company V predicated on price, service, coverage, whatever, although not predicated on technology. Thus technology may have been relevant in the short-term, but in the long term, became irrelevant.https://techwaa.com/
In today's world, technologies tend to swiftly become commoditized, and within any particular technology lies the seeds of its death.
Technology's Relevance
This information was written from the prospective of a finish customer. From the developer/designer standpoint things get murkier. The further one is taken off the technology, the less relevant it becomes. To a developer, the technology will look such as a product. An enabling product, but a product nonetheless, and thus it's highly relevant. Bose uses a proprietary signal processing technology to enable products that meet a set of market requirements and thus the technology and what it enables is strongly related them. https://techsitting.com/ Their customers are more focused on how it sounds, what's the cost, what's the quality, etc., and not really much with how it's achieved, thus the technology used is a lot less strongly related them.
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