It'll be really hard to survive, at least that's what history says as of when Clayton Christensen did this book.
I'll also give you some advice obtained from watching my father over the years: one key thing is to realize when you've got to sell your company or shut it down in an orderly fashion. A whole lot of people would be a lot more wealthy if they'd not ridden their companies into the ground; at least you've realized your predicament and will avoid a controlled flight into terrain crash.
Its a very good example of the Innovator's Dilemma [1] in action, you've got some smart folks who see a future problem, and start creating interesting technology and vision around that problem, and then the reality that the company doesn't "need" it now gets in the way of pushing it from concept into the product stream. So it never gets to the 'commit' point where everyone is on board with shipping it to customers and trying to support it.
Why? Because that is "risky" but just tweaking the current product stream and adding a few features or targeting an adjacent market is much lower "risk."
As Clayton points out in his book innovation always loses in the 'risk' evaluation. So companies that are 'managed' always strive for optimum returns, and since you can't predict the future they are risk averse. Companies that are 'lead' on the other hand have the capability to ignore the risk in order to get to the rewards on the other side.
Startups have the risk meter pegged so it doesn't enter into their management decisions, instead they are focussed on execution and they flame out or succeed as they will and when they succeed they clarify the risk around their idea (if it flops the managers can pat themselves on the back for avoiding that land mine, if it takes off the managers wring their hands and wonder if they should have been able to forecast that success.
I think Apple may have combined some protocols and services into a useful adjunct to their product strategy. We won't really know until later when we see how it fairs. From the presentations and markitecture that Microsoft has espoused it seems like they could have done something similar but they didn't. It does reflect badly on how they are being managed, and that buck does stop at Ballmer. So it will be interesting to see how this affects his future there.
The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki http://www.amazon.com/Art-Start-Time-Tested-Battle-Hardened-...
Outside Innovation - Patricia Seybold http://www.amazon.com/Outside-Innovation-Customers-Co-Design...
Unleashing the Killer App - Larry Downes & Chunka Mui http://www.amazon.com/Unleashing-Killer-App-Strategies-Domin...
Wellsprings of Knowledge - Dorothy Leonard Barton http://www.amazon.com/Wellsprings-Knowledge-Building-Sustain...
The Innovators Dilemma - Clayton Christensen http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Busin...
Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey A. Moore http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-Geoffrey-Moore/dp/00605...
The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs - William H. Draper http://www.amazon.com/Startup-Game-Partnership-Capitalists-E...
Some of these aren't necessarily about startups, but I think they all have something valuable to offer. YMMV.
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore He discusses the Technology Adoption Lifecycle and hi-tech marketing. http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-Geoffrey-Moore/dp/00605...
The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen This Harvard business professor discusses what makes a disruptive innovation. http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Busin...
Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Levinson He discusses some scrappy techniques for promoting your businesses. Not all are applicable to web or hi-tech companies, but it can still spark some great ideas. http://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Marketing-4th-Inexpensive-St...
In The Innovator's Dilemma, Christensen spends quite a bit of time on the disk drive case study, where over several generational transitions the entrenched bigger-faster-better companies when under because they could not match their lower capability (smaller, but more expensive in the case of hard drives) competitors. When the competitors broke out of their niches and into the mainline with size competitive products, they destroyed the entrenched companies with their cost advantages.
ARM owns the low power niche and now it is threatening to catch up with Intel - being "good enough" - in low value moderate performance market. The traditional response of an entrenched company is to retreat to "higher ground," in this case more complex, faster desktops and servers. The problem is, "higher ground" has limited height and the low areas of that high ground keep eroding. Intel is addressing the threat with lower power (and slower) chips - the Atom.
It will be very interesting to see if Intel can stave off their dilemma and become competitive with ARM on the low power, moderate performance, extremely low cost front... and that last part extremely low cost is both the key and Intel's Achilles heel.
References:
* http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Busin...
http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Busin... (not an affiliate link)
