evolutionary patterns in technology ecosystemszprovide insights for technology development decision...

Evolutionary Patterns in Technology Ecosystems

4th Intelligent Storage WorkshopMay 10, 2006

Jesse C. Bockstedt(with Gedas Adomavicius)

© Gedas Adomavicius and Jesse Bockstedt 2006Winter IS Conference 2006

General Research ProblemExplain the evolution of a technology and account for complex system of factors that influences its development Model related technologies and their evolution with respect to the analysis of a given context Provide insights for technology development decision making

AGENDA1. Theoretical background and conceptual model2. Patterns of technology evolution and evolutionary cycles3. Wi-Fi technology empirical study4. Limitations, conclusions and future work


Theoretical BackgroundAccording to Ziman (2000), technological innovations in an industry are so interrelated that one might describe them as occurring in an ecological system of co-evolving artifacts

Accepting a system and population view of technology evolution:

Iansiti and Levien (2004), Rosenkopf and Tushman (1994, 1998), Saviotti (1996)

Defining the structure of the system with theories of hierarchies and roles in technology evolution:

Rosenkopf and Nerkar (1999), Tushman and Rosenkopf (1992), Baldwin and Clark (2000), Podolny and Stuart (1995)

Defining change in the system with theories of technology trajectories and patterns of innovation:

Campbell (1990, 1994), Dosi (1982), Sahal (1985)


Ecosystem Model of Technology Evolution

Product/Application

Support/InfrastructureComponent

Specific vs. general ecosystem view Three specific roles technologies can play: 1) Product/Application, 2) Component, and 3) Support/InfrastructureRelationships among technologies are defined by the rolesInfluences among technologies shape patterns of evolution


Digital Music State Diagram

Paths of influence in digital music ecosystem


WiFi Technology: Data2425 WiFi technology certifications issued by the WiFiAlliance (www.wi-fi.org) between Mar 2000 & Dec 2005WiFi Alliance Technology Categories:

Compact Flash (Component)External Card (Component)Internal Card (Component)USB Client Device (Component)Cellular Convergence (Product)Embedded Client (Product)

PDA (Product)Access Point (Infrastructure)Ethernet Client Device (Infrastructure)Wireless Printers and Print Servers (Infrastructure)

3 types of technical functionality classifications:IEEE Standards (e.g. 802.11b, 802.11g)Security (e.g. WPA, EAP)Multimedia (e.g. WMM, WMM PowerSave)

http://www.wi-fi.org/


Data802.11b Certifications by Category

0

12

34

56

78

910

11

December6, 1999

August12, 2000

April 19,2001

December25, 2001

September 1, 2002

May 9,2003

January14, 2004

September 20, 2004

May 28,2005

February2, 2006

October10, 2006

Date

Wifi

Alli

ance

Cat

egor

y

802.11g Certifications by Category

0123456789

1011

October1, 2000

April 19,2001

November5, 2001

May 24,2002

December 10,2002

June 28,2003

January14, 2004

August 1,2004

February17, 2005

September 5, 2005

March 24,2006

Date

WiF

i Alli

ance

Cat

egor

y

Category #Compact Flash 1External Card 2Internal Card 3USB Client Device 4Access Point 5Ethernet Client

Device 6Wireless Printers

and Print Servers 7Cellular

Convergence 8Embedded Client 9PDA 10


802.11b Certifications 802.11b Certification (Percentage)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Q2 00

Q4 00

Q2 01

Q4 01

Q2 02

Q4 02

Q2 03

Q4 03

Q2 04

Q4 04

Q2 05

Quarter

Per

cent

age

of T

otal

Cer

tific

atio

ns

Component Products Infrastructure


802.11b & g Certifications 802.11b&g Certification (Percentage)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Q2 00

Q4 00

Q2 01

Q4 01

Q2 02

Q4 02

Q2 03

Q4 03

Q2 04

Q4 04

Q2 05

Quarter

Perc

enta

ge o

f Tot

al C

ertif

icat

ions

Comp-b Prod-b Infra-b Comp-g Prod-g Infra-g


WiFi Technology State Diagram

Different cycle - infrastructure plays enabling role in the ecosystem (as opposed to supporting)


Empirical ProblemAre there pockets of technology evolution activity within an ecosystem? And how can we identify them?Can we clearly map the temporal changes within an ecosystem?

Approach – Data MiningData mining allows the data to “speak for itself”Identify naturally occurring patterns in technology attribute data


Proposed TechniqueTechnology Attribute Clustering in Overlapping Time Periods

Divide WiFi data into two year sets with one year overlap (e.g., 2000-2001, 2001-2002)Use hierarchical clustering technique (Ward’s method with Euclidean distance metric) to reduce data into clusters of similar technologiesDefine edges between clusters based on number of shared technologiesDetermine cluster centers based on average attribute values


Evolutionary Graph


Finer Granularity


InsightsAllows researchers to generate evolutionary maps of technology

Patterns of evolutionRelationships between technological activitiesComplexity of ecosystem

Identifies key evolutionary steps and trajectories within an ecosystem

Birth, deathConvergence (integration), divergence (separation)


Limitations and Challenges

Defining the boundaries of an ecosystem

Data collection is difficultComprehensive storage-related data???

What is the appropriate level of analysis? First release or patent of a technologyFrequency or number of products using a new technology


Conclusions and Future Work

This work represents one piece of a new research stream on information technology evolutionDeveloping new data analysis methods and tools for representing technology evolution

Refining data mining and time series data analysisSoftware tools for analyzing and visualizing temporal data

Incorporating other elements into the modelFirms and economic factorsConsumers, adoption, and social factors

evolutionary patterns in technology ecosystemszprovide insights for technology development decision...

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