Technology is definitely an enabler
Many individuals mistakenly still find it technology which drives innovation. Yet from the definitions above, that is actually not the case. It's opportunity which defines innovation and technology which enables innovation. Think of the classic "Build a much better mousetrap" example taught generally in most business schools. You might have the technology to build a much better mousetrap, but when you have no mice or the old mousetrap is useful, there is no opportunity and then a technology to build a much better one becomes irrelevant. On one other hand, if you're overrun with mice then a opportunity exists to innovate something utilizing your technology.
Another example, one with which I'm intimately familiar, are consumer electronics startup companies. I've been associated with both those that succeeded and those that failed. Each possessed unique leading edge technologies. The difference was opportunity. Those who failed could not find the ability to produce a meaningful innovation employing their technology. Actually to survive, these companies had to morph oftentimes into something many different and if they were lucky they could take advantage of derivatives of these original technology. http://yourtechcrunch.com/ More frequently than not, the initial technology wound up in the scrap heap. Technology, thus, is definitely an enabler whose ultimate value proposition is to create improvements to the lives. In order to be relevant, it must be properly used to produce innovations that are driven by opportunity.
Technology as a competitive advantage?
Many companies list a technology together of these competitive advantages. Is this valid? In some instances yes, but Generally no.
Technology develops along two paths - an evolutionary path and a revolutionary path.
A revolutionary technology is the one which enables new industries or enables answers to problems that were previously not possible. Semiconductor technology is a good example. Not merely achieved it spawn new industries and products, however it spawned other revolutionary technologies - transistor technology, integrated circuit technology, microprocessor technology. All which provide most of the products and services we consume today. But is semiconductor technology a competitive advantage? Looking at how many semiconductor companies that exist today (with new ones forming every day), I'd say not. How about microprocessor technology? Again, no. Plenty of microprocessor companies out there. How about quad core microprocessor technology? Not as many companies, but you've Intel, AMD, ARM, and a bunch of companies building custom quad core processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, not much of a competitive advantage. Competition from competing technologies and comfortable access to IP mitigates the perceived competitive advantageous asset of any particular technology. Android vs iOS is a good example of how this works. Both operating systems are derivatives of UNIX. Apple used their technology to introduce iOS and gained an earlier market advantage. However, Google, utilizing their variant of Unix (a competing technology), trapped relatively quickly. The causes for this lie not in the underlying technology, but in how the products made possible by those technologies were brought to market (free vs. walled garden, etc.) and the differences in the strategic visions of every company.https://arstechnician.com/
Evolutionary technology is the one which incrementally builds upon the bottom revolutionary technology. But by it's very nature, the incremental change now is easier for a competitor to complement or leapfrog. Take as an example wireless cellphone technology. Company V introduced 4G products ahead of Company A and while it could experienced a quick term advantage, as soon as Company A introduced their 4G products, the benefit because of technology disappeared. The customer went back to choosing Company A or Company V based on price, service, coverage, whatever, although not based on technology. Thus technology could have been relevant in the temporary, but in the long term, became irrelevant.https://techwaa.com/
In today's world, technologies have a tendency to quickly become commoditized, and within any particular technology lies the seeds of its own death.
Technology's Relevance
This information was written from the prospective of an end customer. From a developer/designer standpoint things get murkier. The further one is taken from the technology, the less relevant it becomes. To a developer, the technology will look just like a product. An enabling product, but something nonetheless, and thus it is highly relevant. Bose works on the proprietary signal processing technology to enable products that meet some market requirements and thus the technology and what it enables is relevant to them. https://techsitting.com/ Their clients are more focused on how it sounds, what's the purchase price, what's the quality, etc., and not so much with how it is achieved, thus the technology used is a lot less relevant to them.
