The Next Big Disruptive Innovation Platform
This article in PC World describes Samsung’s two latest television prototypes that use an astounding new technology called organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). But the article is remarkable not for the new product but for the new disruptive platform it represents.
OLED technology is being fiercely developed by many TV makers because it offers a brighter, more vivid picture than today’s LCD panels. And because OLED pixels emit their own light, a backlight isn’t required, meaning OLED TVs use less power and are also much thinner.
That thinness was a big contributor to the success of the world’s first consumer OLED TV, Sony’s XEL-1 set that went on sale in Japan in December and promptly sold-out despite a relatively expensive ¥200,000 (US$1,834) price tag. The Sony set is just 3 millimeters thick, which is less than a tenth that of current LCD TVs.
Thinness and brightness are the two main improvements cited, yet it is the unique manufacturing process that holds the most promise. This primer on how OLED screens are made describes the process better.
Inkjet printing - With inkjet technology, OLEDs are sprayed onto substrates just like inks are sprayed onto paper during printing. Inkjet technology greatly reduces the cost of OLED manufacturing and allows OLEDs to be printed onto very large films for large displays like 80-inch TV screens or electronic billboards.
This should remind you of something I posted a few weeks ago on a totally different subject: low-cost photovoltaics.
The huge advantage to this technology is the manufacturing process that uses no expensive silicon. With the ability to literally print solar cells on any material, huge avenues of opportunity for innovation open up.
Make photovoltaics cheap enough and energy becomes essentially free - every surface of every building, vehicle, and site improvement exposed to the sun could be used to generate cheap solar energy.
Inkjet printing is rapidly becoming a new platform for disruptive innovation. Imagine a Hallmark card with a small OLED screen printed inside that plays a 4 second video. Or wallpaper that converts your family room wall into a massive screen.
But why just talk about video screens. As I posted in December, this technology will one day allow us to manufacture things for nearly no cost. Manufacturing will become part of the “Long Tail” discussed by Chris Anderson in this video. It’s being used to manufacture organs using living tissue as the ‘ink.’
When listing the greatest innovations of all time, Larry Keeley of Doblin chose not products, but platforms.
Instead our focus should be on platforms: broad capabilities that have the potential to cut across industries, markets, and applications. Platforms often have some proprietary capability at the core, but not always. Indeed, it is common for platforms to integrate many otherwise ordinary ideas into a whole that is collectively remarkable—as is the case with most of the innovations on the list, and the reason they go beyond mere inventions.
Innovation platforms create wealth by reinventing the way we do business. The internet is a broad platform that has led to the development of all kinds of sub-platforms. Electronic transactions create a platform that allows companies and individuals to monetize their websites. Ebay is a platform for retailers to sell goods in a nearly ‘friction-free’ manner to anyone anywhere. Google Adsense has created a platform for thousands of individuals to create wealth on the internet in a myriad different ways.
But think of the impact of making manufacturing and energy essentially free. With the potential implications for revolutionary innovation in thousands of other areas, inkjet printing may become the next platform to join Keeley’s list.
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