A specific type of advancement alters the fundamental way in which components of a product or system interact while simultaneously leveraging existing core design concepts. This type of advancement builds upon established technological foundations, but it reconfigures how those components link together. Consider digital photography as an illustration. The core components of photography capturing light, storing information, and displaying an image remained, but digital technology revolutionized how these components were architected and connected, replacing film with sensors and chemical processing with digital algorithms.
This approach offers several advantages. Companies can capitalize on their current expertise and knowledge base, reducing development costs and time. It often leads to entirely new market segments and applications that were previously unattainable. The transition from mainframe computing to personal computers exemplifies this effect. Existing technologies were adapted and reconfigured to create a smaller, more accessible, and user-friendly computing platform, driving widespread adoption and generating significant economic value.
