case studies
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Kinect for Xbox 360 has been a smashing success since its November 2010 debut, thanks in part to contributions from Microsoft Research to its audio, skeletal-tracking, and facial-recognition capabilities. And further refinements could mean the best is yet to come. Silicon Valley’s Kinect Contributions
Contributions to Kinect for Xbox 360 - Microsoft Research
Interview A couple of months ago, a book appeared in Finland which has become a minor sensation. In the book, a former senior Nokia executive gives his diagnosis of the company, and prescribes some radical and surprising solutions. Up until now, the book has not been covered at all in the English language. This is the first review of the proposals outlined in Uusi Nokia ( New Nokia - the manuscript ) and draws on three hours of interviews with its author, Juhani Risku. It’s very, very timely – and even if you don’t follow Nokia, mobile or telecomms it’s a fascinating exercise in business analysis and organisational studies. Enjoy.
Rescuing Nokia? A former exec has a radical plan • The Register
The prototype was demonstrated to business customers at Nokia’s headquarters in Finland as an example of what was in the company’s pipeline, according to a former employee who made the 2004 presentation in Espoo. But management worried that the product could be a costly flop, said the former employee, Ari Hakkarainen, a manager responsible for marketing on the development team for the Nokia Series 60, then the company’s premium line of smartphones. Nokia did not pursue development, he said.
Nokia’s New Chief Faces a Culture of Complacency - NYTimes.com
Nokia's inability to field a credible response to the launch of the iPhone in 2007 and Google's Android operating system in 2008 has precipitated a freefall in its share price. Today, Apple is riding high, making this the perfect time for it — and every successful company — to reflect on Nokia's fall and ensure that they don't suffer the same fate. Not so long ago, Nokia was the disrupter.
Why Nokia's Collapse Should Scare Apple - Patrick Barwise and Seán Meehan - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review
Back in 2007 Nokia was riding high. They owned well over a third of the mobile phone market, and about every second smartphone sold in the world had Nokia name on it. They set the directions for the rest of the industry, leaving competitors scrambling to catch up with every new product launch.
Unwired View » How Nokia was disrupted. Part 1
(CNN) -- Earlier this week, one of Google's rock-star engineers left that mammoth company -- population: 23,000 -- for Facebook, which has about 2,000 employees. The departure of Lars Rasmussen, co-creator of Google Maps and Google Wave, is only one example, but it raises interesting questions about the precarious nature of corporate tech innovation: Can companies grow and continue to be be creative and innovative? Or will smaller operations always have a monopoly in the new-ideas department? This is especially pressing because, with this latest project, the highly ambitious e-mail replacement software called Google Wave, Rasmussen was trying to prove to himself and to Google that innovation is possible at an enormous company.
Why big tech companies like Google can still innovate - CNN.com
Tonight I was talking with an exec at Google and I brought up the success of Instagr.am (they’ve gotten more than 500,000 downloads in just a few weeks) and asked him “why can’t Google do that?” I knew some of the answers. After all, I watched Microsoft get passed by by a whole group of startups (I was working at Microsoft as Flickr got bought by Yahoo, Skype got bought by eBay, etc etc). I told him a few of my theories, and he told me back what they are seeing internally. Turns out he was talking to me about these items because Google, internally, knows it has an innovation problem (look at Google Wave or Buzz for examples of how it is messed up) and is looking to remake its culture internally to help entrepreneurial projects take hold.
Why Google can’t build Instagram — Scobleizer
One question at Amazon.com’s shareholder meeting this morning in Seattle clearly made an impression on Jeff Bezos, sparking an extraordinary response from the Amazon CEO and founder on the qualities of innovation and the characteristics of the company. The question: Amazon seems to be executing well lately — is the company taking enough risks? Added the shareholder, “If it’s still Amazon’s philosophy to make bold bets, I would expect that maybe some of them wouldn’t work out, but I am just not seeing that. So, my question is where are the losers?” Continue reading for the full text of Bezos’ response, transcribed from the company’s webcast. In a way, that is like the nicest compliment I’ve ever gotten.
Jeff Bezos on innovation: Amazon ‘willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time’ - GeekWire
In the lead up to today's release of the Steve Jobs biography , there's been an increasing stream of news surrounding its subject. As a business researcher, I was particularly interested in this recent article that referenced from his biography a list of Jobs's favorite books . There's one business book on this list, and it "deeply influenced" Jobs. That book is The Innovator's Dilemma by HBS Professor Clay Christensen. But what's most interesting to me isn't that The Innovator's Dilemma was on that list.
Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator's Dilemma - James Allworth - Harvard Business Review
It’s a place where your refrigerator could be connected to the Internet, so it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a social network what you’re eating. Your robot could go to the office while you stay home in your pajamas. And you could, perhaps, take an elevator to outer space. These are just a few of the dreams being chased at X, the clandestine lab where Google is tackling a list of 100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas. In interviews, a dozen people discussed the list; some work at the lab or elsewhere at Google, and some have been briefed on the project.
At Google X, a Top-Secret Lab Dreaming Up the Future - NYTimes.com