Customer Reviews:
 just great book May 12, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Just great book for those considering start their own business.
Would be helpful for bean counters in large corporations too.
A Marketing Student April 9, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I advised my professor to add this book to his reading list and contemplate making this required text. Filled with examples, this book helps open one's eyes. Another tool to avoid marketing myopia. A very enjoyable read.
 Good, but very condensed March 28, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Classic business book. This audio-book version is very well narrated, but it's a very abridged version so don't expect all the details from the printed version. There's enough material for the listener to understand the concepts and it's REALLY nice to be able to listen while driving in the car, etc.
Companies Are Sometimes Too Smart! March 11, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Christensen writes about the failure of good, well-managed companies to stay atop their industries when they are confronted by certain types of disruptive market and technological change. This has happened in industries that move fast and those that move slow, and in manufacturing and service industries. Companies that fell prey to these disruptive changes include Sears, IBM, DEC, Xerox, and integrated steel manufacturers.
Christensen defines "sustaining" technologies as those that improve the performance of established products along dimensions that major customers have historically valued. "Disruptive" technologies, on the other hand, generally under-perform established products in major markets but have new features that a few new/fringe customers value - generally smaller, cheaper, simpler (eg. PCs, discount retailing, off-road motorcycles, transistors, and HMOs).
Disruptive technologies, when viewed by "rational" decision-makers, offer lower margins (due to their generally cheaper and simpler nature), are first commercialized in new or small markets (thus, they don't solve large corporations' growth needs), and are not valued by major, current customers. Thus, they wait for new market entrants to exploit their potential, and the strong, existing firms risk becoming obsolescent due their being late to change.
The Innovation Bible March 2, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the authoritative work on coming up with a business plan that is disruptive to your competitors and yet something that they cannot respond to. Since the time this book was published, many progressive companies have learnt the lessons revealed here - larger companies set up incubators/shell-companies to pursue different lines of business (witness Cisco's spin-off and subsequent acquisition of Andiamo for instance). Similarly companies recognize and respond to disruptive technologies faster (witness Oracle's buy out of open source database technologies). Still a must read for anyone in the business of innovation.
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