Bringing Computer Power to the Consumer Market: Cutting-edge technologies

Firms in many industrial sectors are seeking to capitalize on the promise of new information technology to generate new consumer products which can gain substantial markets. Where these are improved versions of familiar products, the marketing task is relatively easy, but many of the new product opportunities involve radically new types of consumer good and/or service. Drawing on studies of efforts to establish such radical innovations, this paper examines the problems that are confronted in attempting to define what sort of product is actually being created and how it may fit into consumer life-styles. Though there is considerable discussion of these topics in industrial circles, it appears that until very late stages of product development, little serious analysis of social issues is undertaken—if at all. Furthermore, such discussions of the nature and use of products are more intended to mobilize the group of actors who are needed to support the innovation than to feed substantial information about possible user requirements into the design process. The design process is much more liable to incorporate ideas derived from analysis of technological trends and the use of products in professional applications, than information derived from social science or market research.