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“Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey MooreTechnology Adoption Life Cycle

Innovators Early Adoption

EarlyMajority

LateMajority Laggards

PsychProfile:

Tech has central interestin their life

Tech has central interestin their life

Practical wait& see

Waiting for the establishedstandard

The “cracked” model is more accurate.

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Innovators Early Adopters

Early Majority

Late Majority

Laggards

When a hot new technology product cannot be readily translated into a major new benefit

Home Banking.

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In the High Tech Industries the Innovators are the technology enthusiasts (e.g., VCE, Camcorders).

Early Adopters – (or visionaries) – provide insight to match an emerging technologies to a strategic opportunity.

(E.g. Henry Ford assembly line they did not look for improvement. Rather they looked for a breakthrough.

The Early Adopters communicate the deliverable to the next group: (Price sensitively, ease of use.)

Laggard – are the skeptics.

Entering the mainstream – or how to “start a fire” is the challenge.

The strategy is not to become a sales driver, (vs. a niche strategy) because we need to capture the Reference Base.

The key: select a strategic segment with entry points to a bigger segment. Apples || segment (originally – school children).

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It reflects dissociation between the 2 groups – (Innovators & Early Adopters).

There exists an opportunity to lose momentum and to miss transition to the next stage.

e.g., PC based home banking

(In the transition from Innovators to Early Adopted).

The second crack

(between Early Adopters and Early Majority)

is even more important.

The transition requires a need for a strategic leap.

E.g. LAN’s launch has been attempted several times in the early eighties until the development of Novel software running on IBM PC hardware with interface cards that fitted into existing IBM PC slots.

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Successful Crossings:

Apple

Tanden

(Desktop Publishing)

ApplicationNiche Approach

(Automatic Teller Machine)