Apples flops and continuous reinvention
Another thought on this: one company that is often viewed as “immune” to the Peter-principle of innovation is Apple, yet it has its very own history of flops and not getting it (which brought it to the brink more than once). Michael Urlocker notes some of them, pointing out that one can learn a lot from them.:
Apple rates highly as an innovator in my view, but the company has been inconsistent in its long history.
Two disruptive innovations were big hits: the Mac and the iPod because
[…]
Many of Apple’s product flops seem to suffer from classic traps of would-be disruptors:
* Apple sometimes bet the farm on new technology and features ahead of clear market feedback from users (Newton)
* it tried to cram a new disruptive idea into a known business (Motorola ROKR phone, Eworld)
* it tried to create an incrementally better product in a crowded market (Cyberdog web browser, Pippin game console.
