The three letters that should haunt Sun Microsystems executives are not “IBM,” but “SGI.” The saga of SGI and the overlap between its path and that of Sun’s is a cautionary tale: a long legacy of innovation is no guarantee of a future. When the cycle of technology moves on and ideas that were once so innovative become commonplace, the company that built its fame around the innovation may be surprisingly slow to adjust.
The Innovator’s Tailspin
April 6, 2009