At ASP we often hear the term “disruptive technologies” when talking with our members. But what does that really mean? (The PC “disrupted” the typewriter industry and
yet I’m using a clicking QWERTY keyboard to type this report.) We submit –- whatever your definition — that disruption has become the norm.
As ASP founder Jeffrey Tarter noted in the first Maintenance and Services Rations report in 2004, “Technology pundits are always on the lookout for ‘disruptive’ changes in the
software world, but they’ve mostly missed one of the biggest transformations of the last few years—the greatly expanded role of services.” A decade later, that role has continued to expand and change, until now we have products that are called (and delivered as) services and yet still tracked as product sales.