Introduction
Morison’s (2004) essay, “Gunfire at Sea: A Case Study in Innovation”, is a commentary on the social implications of technological change that surrounded the introduction of continuous-aim firing in both the British and American navies. Morison discusses (1) conditions that foster technological innovation, (2) reactions to the changes produced by innovation, and (3) the elements of an adaptive society. The Cogan and Burgelman (2004) case, “Intel Corporation: The DRAM Decision”, paired with the aforementioned reading, recounts Intel’s encounter with technological change and how they came to exemplify the idea of an adaptive society.
Discussion
DRAM Decision
Throughout its history, Intel has centered its strategy on the tenets of technological leadership and innovation (Burgelman, 1994). Intel established its reputation for taking calculated risks early on in 1969 by pioneering the metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) processing technology. This new process technology enabled Intel to increase the number of circuits while simultaneously being able to reduce the cost-per-bit by tenfold. In 1970, Intel once again led the way with the introduction of the world’s first DRAM. While other companies had designed functioning DRAMs, they had failed to develop a process technology that would allow manufacturing of the devices to be commercially viable. By 1972, unit sales for the 1103, Intel’s original DRAM, had accounted for over 90% of the company’s $23.4 million revenue (Cogan & Burgelman, 2004).
By 1984, a combination of factors had contributed to lowering the profitability of the DRAM industry. As the DRAM industry matured, DRAMs began to take on the characteristics of a commodity product (Burgelman, 1994; Burgelman & Grove, 2004). Competitors had closed the gap on Intel’s lead in technology development causing the basis of competition to shift towards manufacturing capacity. Gaining market share in an industries where product features had become standardized required companies to agressively pursue capacity expansion, while engaging simultaneously in cutthroat price competition. Also, with each successive DRAM generation, companies wishing to keep pace with the demand for increasing production yields were forced to commit increasingly large capital investments to retrofit their fabrication facilities. Figure 1 contains a snapshot of the DRAM industry between the periods of 1974 through 1984. The important thing to note is that Intel begins to fall behind the competition beginning with the 16K generation and is virtually non-existent in any of the future generations (Burgelman, 1994).
The Modern Era saw great change in naval technology and warfare. The period saw the creation of explosive shells, iron-clad ships, steam-powered vessels, and more. Dramatic advances like these created considerable shifts in global political and economic power.
Technology played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the World War II. Much of it developed during the interwar years to 1920s and 1930s. However, the developmental changes in technology occurred in early and late 1940s. The customization of technology took place in United States while the soldiers kept on fighting abroad. Weaponry, logistical support, communications, intelligence equipment, medicine and industrial changes were among them. In weaponry, some of the technological upgrades happened in ships, military vehicles, aircraft, artillery, rocketry, and small arms, biological, chemical and nuclea...
It seems since that dawn of the era of man we have always been in competition with one another. We have fought countless wars over every issue imaginable, with many great civilizations being founded and destroyed by war. Though with each new conflict comes newer and better technology. Technology is what drives civilizations forward, but it can also lead to its downfall. It is fascinating see how much technology has evolved over history, and how we have incorporated these innovations into newer technology. In past century technology has seen its greatest leap forward. This is in large part due to the two major World Wars that plagued the early part of the 20th century. (Koch p.122)
The ubiquity of silicon chips has been primarily driven by the breadth, and rate of innovation in the semiconductor field over the past fifty years. Every realm of human life has benefited from these advancements, and it is gratifying to know that each of us in the field has played a part, however infinitesimal. However, disruptive innovation in the next ten years will surpass all that we have accomplished in the last fifty years.
Byte Products, Inc., headquartered in the midwestern United States, is regarded as one of the largest volume supplier for the production of electronic components used in personal computers. Byte Products, Inc., was a privately owned firm that has now entered to be a publicly traded company. The majority of the stockholders are the initial owners of Byte, when it was still privately owned. The products that Byte produces are primarily found in computers used for business and engineering applications. Byte Products, Inc., has been the leader in this industry for the past six year with consistent yearly revenues of 12% and total sales of approximately $265 million. Byte also has 32% of the market share.
When going to a bar to have drinks your go voluntarily you take you own decision on and action on whether your drink. The employees that are in charge of serving alcohol are doing their job which is selling product and making drinks. The Dram shop liability laws makes accountable alcohol servers responsible for harm that drunk or underage people cause to other people or themselves. Well I personally believe servers should not be accountable le of other drunk people that cant drinking with out loosing their actions. First reason is , the servers never invited them to get drunk didn’t obligated the intoxicators to drink the servers just serve the drink. They don’t see if you drunk folks came with someone or came alone so, why make them accountable
Capital requirements to set up an assembly line to produce PC's are also relatively low, estimated at roughly a million dollars (Rivkin & Porter,1999 pg. 5) which means that virtually any firm can enter the market easily. Despite sky rocketing demands for PC's, PC producers are unable to capitalize due to increasing number of competitors. The PC industry is also affected by environmental turbulence due to price fluctuations of its components. Constant innovation in PC technology causes older components to be rendered obsolete and prices of older versions to plummet. PC producers who are stuck with inventory of obsolete products incur high costs of dumping these components.
Summary of Clock Speed: Winning Industry Control in the Age of Temporary Advantage by Charles H. Fine
“After the integrated circuits the only place to go was down—in size that it. Large scale integration (LS) could fit hundreds of components onto one chip. By the 1980’s, very large scale integration (VLSI) squeezed hundreds of thousands of components onto a chip. Ultra-Large scale integration (ULSI) increased that number into millions. The ability to fit so much onto an area about half the size of ...
Another challenge semiconductor manufacturers face is high cost of research and development. In order to stay competitive, companies have to invest a lot and offer high performing semiconductors with competitive prices. Yet, if they lag with R&D, their products become ...
According to the casing study, Intel’s “Rebates” and Other Ways It “Helped” Customers Intel paid customer huge pay. As the dominating company, they purposely paid other companies not to use ADM products. They paid Dell 6 billion dollars over a 5 year period (Velasquez, 2014). In addition, they knew ADM would not be able to compete with them: they took advantage of their size and used their rebate program to try and ADM from advancing in the x86 processor industry. In addition, Intel’s monolply-like behavior is displayed in the terms of quality. They did not care about customers wanting the reliable x86 processors, they wanted to monopolize the market with their product, and would pay a huge amount of money to achieve their
Now we have the major elements needed to produce a CPU. In 1965 a company by
In 2010, because of its innovation strategy and acquisitions, Lenovo became one of the world’s largest PC producers by having achieved a considerable market share (Lenovo 2013b).
Prior to the revolution in technology that was microprocessors, making a computer was a large task for any manufacturer. Computers used to be built solely on discrete, or individual, transistors soldered together. Microprocessors act as the brain of a computer, doing all mathematics. Depending on how powerful the machine was intended to be, this could take weeks or even months to produce with individual components. This laborious task put the cost of a computer beyond the reach of any regular person. Computers before lithographic technology were massive and were mostly used in lab scenarios (Brain 1).
The computer has progressed in many ways, but the most important improvement is the speed and operating capabilities. It was only around 6 years ago when a 386 DX2 processor was the fastest and most powerful CPU in the market. This processor could do a plethora of small tasks and still not be working to hard. Around 2-3 years ago, the Pentium came out, paving the way for new and faster computers. Intel was the most proficient in this area and came out with a range of processors from 66 MHz-166 Mhz. These processors are also now starting to become obsolete. Todays computers come equipped with 400-600 Mhz processors that can multi-task at an alarming rate. Intel has just started the release phase of it’s new Pentium III-800MHz processor. Glenn Henry is