Introduction
History of the mankind is filled with numerous discoveries and inventions. Technological innovations take a special place among them because they facilitated progress and provided for better living conditions for mankind. However, in this respect, there is also a place for an exception, and this exception is called Disruptive Technology. The specialty of this technology lies in its deviance from the mainstream ones in such aspects as performance factors, operation costs, and results of their usage.
Thus, disruptive technologies are usually simple in operation as the major aim of their production is the simplification of the already existing ones. They are cheaper in production and operation, and this factor also reflects the purpose of disruptive technology development. However, these two advantages result in a substantial drawback of these technologies – it is their lower productivity and worse quality of the products. Drawing from all these factors, disruptive technologies are used rather rarely as they are viewed as disadvantaged ones. Nevertheless, there are cases of successful implementation of disruptive technologies in industrial companies (Christensen, 2000).
Betamax Disruptive Technology
To begin with, it is necessary to state that disruptive technologies are mainly observed, according to Christensen (2000), in the four spheres of the industry including information technology, machine building, metallurgy, and car building (Christensen, 2000). Information technology, as the most important branch of the industry in the era of the informational society, has been quickly developing since the middle of the 20th century, and the inventions made by researchers in this sphere have irreversibly changed the face of humanity of today. The pioneer disruptive technologies in the information technology sphere were Betamax and VHS video recording technologies (Betamax, 2003).
Betamax was first introduced by Sony Company in 1975 as a progressive way of video data recording and storage. Its major difference from the formerly preferred U-Matic technology lied in the recording time it allowed – 60 minutes compared to several minutes. The quality of the recorder images and pieces of the video was also much better, as experts agree than the quality allowed by any previously introduced innovations.
Finally, the smaller size of the Betamax video cassettes also played a great role in their popularization in the market. However, the result of Betamax’s disruptive technology introduction was its complete failure as a commercial product in the world market of the Information Technologies industry. By the late 1980s, the production of Betamax video cassettes had been stooped. Sony reported the construction of the last Betamax recording-reading device in 2002 in Japan. After this year, the market of video recording was completely captured by, at first, VHS technology, and further by the producers of digital decoding technologies (Owen, 2005).
Looking back to the 1980s, it can be seen now that the organizational structure of Sony did not allow Betamax technology to become a successful and widely used recording instrument. The promotion and marketing departments of the Sony Company failed to introduce all the advantages of Betamax to its potential distributors and international buyers. Accordingly, knowing that the construction of Betamax decoders is rater costly, the distributors of video recording machines gave their preference to some other technologies, among which VHS was a dominant one. Thus, the Sony Company was given a lesson of successful marketing of its production by its major competitor JVC, whose VHS cassettes won the market share and promoted the company into one of the leaders of the IT industry of the period (Owen, 2005).
VHS Disruptive Technology
As it has already been stated above, the VHS disruptive technology was first introduced to the international information technologies market by the JVC Company in 1976. The major competition it has to stand was the one with the Sony Company and the Betamax disruptive technology introduced by it. However, it is a widely accepted fact nowadays, that VHS technology won that competition dismissing Betamax completely from the international and domestic Japanese market. It was possible, to a large extent, due to the operational and financial advantages that VHS technologies provided (Tellis, 2006). First of all, VHS video cassettes were easier in operation than any products of JVC’s competitors.
They were easy in recording and reading the data they contained, and also they had a guard band on them to ensure the protection of the data recorder from any damages. Moreover, the recording time allowed on VHS video cassettes was much longer than any of its equivalents. For example, compared to the Betamax video cassettes, VHS ones allowed the user to record five as much data – 60 minutes of recording on a Betamax cassette compared to over 180 minutes on a VHS one (Owen, 2005).
Further on, the financial and, especially, commercial side of the VHS technology usage was dominant in its success. The first point here was that VHS machines were devised for the low-cost construction process (Stoyeck, 2007). Accordingly, it was more profitable for the video recording machine producers and distributors in American and in Europe to deal with the disruptive technology offered by JVC. Moreover, the initially unexplainable higher demand for the VHS video cassettes facilitated this choice of business companies.
Even despite the fact that Betamax video cassettes provided their users with the better quality recording, VHS ones were preferred due to their length, simplicity of operation, protection means they provided and such an odd reason as the availability of pornography on them. The point is that Betamax, i. e. the Sony Company, protested against pornography being recorded on their cassettes, and the users interested in it had a rather simple choice to make (Owen, 2005).
Drawing from the above presented facts, it is obvious that all the elements of the organizational structure of JVC did their best in introducing the VHS disruptive technology to the market. The production department provided for its operational simplicity and low costs, the marketing department monitored the market as for the products in the greatest demand, and the advertising department managed to present the VHS technology as the biggest good for the users who wanted to feel comfortable while recording videos or watching them. Thus, the lesson JVC learnt from VHS introduction manifested the understanding of the role of marketing and appeal to the consumers’ needs in business (Owen, 2005).
Conclusions
To conclude, the use of disruptive technologies is usually associated with certain drawbacks in their operation, results and costs of their maintenance. There are numerous examples to this assumption, including the failure of the Betamax technology introduced by the Sony Company in the market. However, there also cases that dismantle this prejudice and prove the right of disruptive technologies for their existence. The example of such a case is the VHS disruptive technology success after its introduction in the market by JVC in 1976.
References
Betamax. (2003). Who is Betamax? What is Betamax? Where is Betamax? Web.
Christensen, C.M. (2000). The Innovator’s Dilemma. Harper Business.
Owen, D. (2005). The Betamax vs VHS Format War. Web.
Tellis, G.J. (2006). Disruptive Technology or Visionary Leadership? Web.
Stoyeck, R. (2007). Stock Research – Eastman Kodak And The Power Of Disruptive Technologies. Web.