The term disruptive technology was coined by Clayton M. Christensen to describe a new, low cost, often simpler technology that displaces an existing sustaining technology.
Disruptive technologies are usually initially inferior to the technology that they displace, but their low cost creates a market that induces technological and economic network effects that provide the incentive to enhance them to match and surpass the previous technology.
Examples of successful disruptive technologies:
- mass-market cellular telephony
- the Internet protocol
- digital cameras
- personal computers
- voice over IP
- EIDE/UDMA hard drives
- open-source software
- ADSL
- Compact Discs
- the automobile
- add more examples here...
Examples of sustaining technologies being displaced:
- fixed-line telephony
- proprietary or fixed-configuration networks
- photographic film
- mainframe computers
- analog and fixed digital telephone systems
- SCSI hard drives
- proprietary software
- ISDN
- railways
- amateur radio
- add more examples here...
Unresolved examples of technologies promoted as 'disruptive technologies'
- Music downloads and file sharing vs. compact discs
- ebooks vs. paper books
- e-commerce vs. physical shops
- Betamax
- Laserdiscs
- Cold fusion
- Japanese fifth generation computer systems project
- Virtual reality
- PDAs
- 3G
- add more examples here