The Digital Readiness Journey: From University via Industry and First Products to Billions in Revenue

Today, I only have one picture for you, from 2003. It is known as the “tire tracks” chart, and it dates back to 1995. Here we see the so-called long nose of innovation at work. There is a lot of speculation around that concept, and therefore this chart by computer scientist and Turing Award winner Butler Lampson is very important evidence. For 19 IT-related developments and from 1965 to 2000 – from time-sharing to broadband-in-the-last-mile – the cart sketches out the university phase (red), the industry R&D phase (blue), the first products phase (black dots), and the 1 billion dollar market phase (green). In 2012 the 2003 “tire tracks” chart was again updated as part of this “Continuing Innovation in Information Technology” report. For that occasion the 10 billion dollar market phase was added and the following eight IT sectors with a large economic impact were identified: broadband & mobile, microprocessors, personal computing, Internet & web, cloud computing, enterprise systems, entertainment & design, and robotics & assistive technologies. The “tire tracks” chart 2012 ranges from 1965-2010. These type of charts are prominent chunks of the digital readiness puzzles that VINT on a daily basis and in many different contextual environments attempts to solve, considering technological achievability, organizational practicability, economic feasibility and social desirability.