Overshooting and Innovation
December 18, 2008
I recently blogged about a new disruptive technology for PL/SQL developers, so the following discussion on Eddie Awad’s Blog (and the related conversation I started on a LinkedIn Group ) caught my attention because it highlights the concept of overshooting — the fact that many companies innovate faster than customers can keep up.
There are a large number of Oracle developers who strive to constantly learn new technologies and keep up with the latest trends. This is good. But there are even more developers who are “just PL/SQL developers” and who are overwhelmed by the need to learn a half-dozen new technologies just to deliver a richer user experience to their enterprise customers.
These developers are very valuable to the enteprise and represent a significant market opportunity because they will consider new products that will help them get the important job of “delivering rich web apps to my users” done, as long as they can leverage what they already know. In fact a recent survey I ran indicated that 90% of PL/SQL developers believe they would benefit if they could develop rich web applications on their own in a way that increased the value of their existing Oracle and PL/SQL skills.
These developers would be viewed as non-consumers of the latest middle-tier technology, application framework, or language. But with non-consumption comes incredible market opportunities if you can provide them with a good enough product that is more convenient, less costly, or easier to use.
And that’s why products such as TURBOEnterprise, that I mentioned last time, have such potential.