Five Disruptive Technologies to Watch For

by Tim Bajarin

At last week's CES show, I had the privilege of moderating a Super Session called "Big Thinkers and Disruptive Technologies." The impact of disruptive technologies on the marketplace was first discussed by Clayton Christensen in his book The Innovator's Dilemma, wherein he showed how the Intel x86 processor has had a disruptive effect on just about every market in the world. The folks from CES requested that, using this idea as a backdrop, I ask various industry leaders what they think will be the next disruptive technologies.

In my opening remarks, I pointed out that the iPhone fits this model: It has redefined the smartphone and has caused other handset vendors to scramble to keep up. In fact, with the iPhone, Apple has basically given us a PC in our pocket, and that alone is changing the way people think about the smartphone. Netbooks are disruptive, too; they're changing how people view portable computing, and, more important, they're disrupting pricing models. This is good news for consumers, but lower prices on laptops really change vendor's profit margins. The most important viewpoints, however, came from our distinguished panelists.

1. Instant on. First up was Dr. Eli Harari, the founder, chairman, and CEO of SanDisk Corp. Dr. Harari is known as the father of flash memory; he pointed out that over the past 35 years, flash memory capacities have gone from 16 bits to 64 gigabits on a single chip. He introduced new multilevel cell (MLC) chips at the show that have access speeds equivalent to a 40,000-rpm drive, and compared that with today's fastest hard drives, which access data at 14,000 rpm. We're on track to see flash memory become the storage medium of all things mobile, and embedded in desktops, TVs, and other media devices. With these fast access speeds, we'll move to instant-boot and instant-on access in the future. Harari suggested that instant-on would be disruptive, changing the way people will work with a multitude of digital devices in the future.

2. Pervasive connectivity. Dr. Harari was followed by Dr. Levy Gerzberg, CEO of Zoran Corp. Zoran is famous for the chips it makes—they're in millions of set-top boxes, digital cameras, and cell phones. He thought careful integration of hardware and software to create easier-to-use devices would help bring digital technology to the masses. He stated that "ease of use is a real problem in the industry," and encouraged manufacturers to make it the cornerstone of technology design. Zoran has painstakingly integrated its chips and the software needed to drive them. And in fact, devices that use any of the company's next-gen chips can talk to each other and work seamlessly together. As he explained, this makes it simple for people to share pictures and new digital media, as well as data. Disruption lies in the next generation of pervasive connectivity.

3. Targeted advertising. Jason Young, CEO of Ziff Davis and the PCMag Digital Network, spoke about the Internet's disruptive effect on the media business. It has forced content creators and advertisers to adjust the way they reach readers. According to Young, "The empowerment of the user to be part of the media equation has really been disruptive. The user has the ability to be a publisher himself or herself," he said, noting that thousands of people walking around with video devices can upload content to sites like YouTube and become part of the media experience themselves.

He also pointed out that the Internet has dramatically disrupted the market for advertisers, enabling them to target customers much more accurately. He explained that PCMag's readers want to access this content from all types of devices and participate, in real time, in the feedback and discussion on any topic; Young predicted that most media publications will move in this direction over time.

4. Telepresence. Another panelist was Ken Wirt, VP of consumer marketing at Cisco Systems. Wirt shared the idea that visual networking will have a disruptive nature on communication, citing Cisco's TelePresence rooms—videoconferencing rooms that the company Integrated into 75 offices worldwide. Today Cisco execs use these systems for almost all internal meetings, and since their introduction, company travel bills have fallen 22 percent. He deemed this technology disruptive to both the hotel and airline markets since it allows companies to meet and conference without travel. He suggested that eventually, video networking will extend down to consumers and completely change the way we communicate when we can't be there in person.

5. Cloud-based DRM. The last panelist was David Habiger, president and CEO of Sonic Solutions, the company behind Roxio and the more recent DVD burning technology Qflix. His company just bought CinemaNow, and this week it announced that Blockbuster will use CinemaNow for its online movie store, replacing the current offering. Mr. Habiger stated that with today's technology, people need specific media players and DRM technology on each device to handle their media. Sonic has spent three years working on technology to transfer this media management into the cloud. In the not-too-distant future a person will be able access any content on any device without the need for specialized client players or DRM. This is a really cool concept, one that disrupts current media models and makes it feasible to use all types of devices for all types of media consumption. Sonic's ability to make this happen could be a real milestone for the industry.

I ended the session by making available an insightful report from the folks at Computer Sciences Corp. entitled "Digital Disruptions" (you can download the PDF at www.csc.com/ddreport). It goes into great detail on a lot of other disruptors that CSC believes will power 21st-century business—and it's very provocative reading.