2
The S-Curve
A Concept and Its Lessons
Key Topics Covered in This Chapter
- The S-curve concept
- Lessons from the S-curve for innovators
WHETHER you pursue innovation through incremental or radical means, you’ll eventually run up against practical constraints that either impede further progress or make it prohibitively expensive.This chapter uses the S-curve to describe these situations.
The S-Curve Explained
The course of successful technological innovation is often described through an S-shaped curve like the two shown in figure 2-1. An S-curve is plotted on a two-dimensional plane and describes how the performance or cost characteristics of a technology change with time and continued investments. Here the horizontal axis reflects the unfolding ...
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