Innovations I dream up can be better prepared for success if I am careful not to repeat the mistakes of business past. Innovations can be affected by forces beyond our control, such as society and culture moving differently or launching a product at the wrong time. However, for those who may have worked in large organizations, sometimes the forces beyond our control are the very leaders and their business rivalries. Thus begins our tale of Windows Phone. Many people who shop for smartphones have never heard of Windows Phone. Windows Phone was an operating system that ran on smartphone hardware developed and released by Microsoft in 2010 (Savov, 2017). Windows Phone OS (Operating System) was revolutionary with features such as icons that changed and updated, advanced camera hardware, and other elements that are now present in operating systems running on iOS and Android OS that we may take for granted. Yet the concept failed in the marketplace. Why did Windows Phone fail to impact the smartphone marketspace significantly? Examining common forces against innovations such as technical, legal, ethical, and social issues does not yield many significant barriers against the new operating system. Windows OS hardware manufacturers were separate from Microsoft, and it supported operating Windows Phone OS without many technical challenges. There were no patent battles with giants in the smartphone space such as Google and Apple; thus, legal problems did not necessarily prevent it from succeeding. What ultimately killed Windows phone were two things the developers and designers had no control over; company branding and senior leadership's socio-political rivalry with competitors. Microsoft and Google have long had a corporate rivalry. That rivalry continues with the two corporate behemoths feuding in court and media (Satter, 2021). However, some believe the factors that doomed Windows Phone may have been senior leadership's corporate culture, which made it difficult for applications like Instagram and FaceBook to be included on the device. In addition, there was pressure for the OS to be tied to the Microsoft desktop operating system, which on the heels of a botched Windows 8 desktop OS, soured consumers to Windows's brand (Edwards, 2021). In addition, Microsoft's corporate nemesis Google had refused to allow them to use Youtube, Google Maps, and other popular and well-established applications (The Times of India, 2019). An ex-Nokia engineer shared with The Times of India that Microsoft leadership underestimated Google's value to users and had little interest in adding their suite of applications to their operating system (2019). These two lessons are essential to my sociotechnical plan for product innovation. First, I must recognize socio-political pressures and develop a plan to neutralize them to ensure success. The socio-political aspect is true when creating technical solutions that may rely on other applications or products produced by other companies (or competitors). This can be achieved by researching what other parts of the organization are doing or performing scenario planning to minimize the risk a product launch may face.
Second, I need to be careful that my innovation is not launched when other product launches or social issues may impact its success. For example, a car manufacturer launching a new vehicle line with low fuel efficiency that generates the maximum allowed amount of carbon output would be difficult to sell today when consumers make decisions based on environmental issues (Laker, 2022). Being successful with an innovation being introduced to the marketplace often requires more than a great idea. Hopefully, business behemoths such as Microsoft have learned from expensive flops like the Windows 8 release and the Windows Phone rivalry. Launching an innovation requires a little more finesse than dumping incredible amounts of resources into a product and throwing it in front of consumers. Given the proper launch at the right time, an innovative product can overcome unforeseeable forces, hopefully.
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AuthorI am a Doctoral Scholar at Colorado Technical University and a graduate of the Cyber Security Operations and Leadership program from the University of San Diego. I work in cybersecurity, and have accumulated twenty years in the IT industry. There are few IT roles I have not performed, which gives me great insights into making sense of all the IT confusion. Archives
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