re: the "new problem"
by the time we can research
our options and engineer a solution for hardware and software deployment - IT'S OBSOLETE and we feel like we'll
have made a bad decision because something more efficient and less costly will be available.
i'm sure that almost all businesses are running into this "new problem".
your neodigitechnophobia is needlessly holding your progress back IMO. this is not a new problem. probably started with the first invention. i'm sure igor said this octagon shaped wheel is really cool but thor is working on a more rounded one so i'll wait for that wheel to come out. many eons later, i myself wondered if my purchase of 4 new yokohama 245/45 ZR18's was wise. how long can you wait before you make a decision, that the decision to wait will end up costing you in the long run.
a good example of this is china. it's easy to see how china has struggled with it's wireless communications
solution... which technology to deploy, how long to wait before beginning deployment, etc.
this is not what china is wrestling with. they are not trying to decide who's technology to buy as much as they are trying to find standards they can deploy using chinese resourses and in a manner where they are making the majority of the profits on the manufacturing and deployment of this technology.
another aspect of this "new problem" is that those who WAIT to deploy capital improvements
end up leapfrogging the technology of their competitors AT LESS COST, mind you. obviously, china will end up
having a more advanced, more efficient telecommunications network (CDMA) than europe, at a much reduced
deployment cost.
again i say waiting too long costs a company in productivity growth and progress. this does illustrate the importance of technology being backward compatible or scalable though. that cuts out a lot of the leapfrogging and allows companies to quickly and cost efficiently upgrade or deploy new technology on the fly.
perhaps in the future, instead of seeing huge companies increasingly growing larger and larger, we'll see huge
companies becoming leaner, spinning out semi-independent "offspring". the large lean company will act as the
"umbrella" company providing capital, research and development for the "offspring" to "leapfrog" each other with
newer technologies in exchange for profit sharing back to the "umbrella", thereby averaging out the disadvantages
of the "new problem".
i think a conglomerate like say TYC is probably about as close to this as you'll get.
i think one of the most valuable assets a company can have, as far as future successful growth goes, is smart,
quick personnel with the right attitude and the ability to see and effectively deal with the "new problem". they
need to be lean, they need to be small enough to deploy whole new systems quickly and affordably, and they
need to have a constant supply of new capital.
even with as low a rate of unemployment that we now have there is still a serious shortage of high tech employees and the answer for most of these companies is educational programs to teach and promote new technology. CSCO has some great programs in a lot of colleges now as does intel and many other tech companies.
so i don't necessarily see this as a new problem as much as an ongoing problem. all companies are cyclical in their productivity, growth, profitability and progress. some just run in longer cycles than others. indentifying the upward cycle of a company can indeed be profitable for the investor. i believe this is one factor in the investing theory of buy when they hate the stock and sell when the love them. i think that's held up mainly because it follows the cycles of companies closely. again, all JMHO. she_xtreme |
