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The field of navigation devices is interesting, because it is focused on product-services, which makes it difficult to apply the usual concept of "dominant design", and also because the business model can by quite tricky. This is especially true when a pureplay like TomTom must confront itself with competitors who have a much wider range of services and who can easily subsidize free navigation apps through its other businesses, such as Nokia and Google. In any case, TomTom made a smart move in 2007 by acquiring a critical and potentially monopolistic supplier of mapping data such as TeleAtlas.

Mr. Joshi (the head of Hewlett-Packard's $24 billion printing empire) has spent years disputing the notion that people will print less as they do more on their hand-held devices. This week, he will see his ideas put into action as H.P. introduces a fleet of printers with Web access, their own e-mail addresses and touch screens. These products should open up new ways for people to print from Web services like Google Docs, and from smartphones and devices like the iPad from Apple. Mr. Joshi is going back to his roots as an engineer - as a young H.P. researcher, he figured out a way to make ink cartridges fire 45 million drops - and relying on new technologies, not slick marketing. But still, he will have to prove that customers will change their behavior and print more if given the right tools. That, Mr. Reitzes said, is crucial to how investors will evaluate the long-term prospects of H.P. "Investors are worried about printing," he said. "It's really important that they get this right." As the world's largest technology company, H.P. sells a wide variety of products but got much of its profit from printers and their pricey ink. More recently, H.P. has built up a large technology services arm as well, which has helped round out its business. But the printing division accounts for about a fifth of its revenue and a third of its profits. The new printers - which build on a limited experiment last year - will range in price from $99 to about $400. Every one will come with what H.P. executives billed as a breakthrough feature - its very own e-mail address. H.P.'s engineers hit on the e-mail address as an easy, familiar way for people to send print jobs to the Web-ready printers. You can, for example, take a photo with a phone, e-mail it to your printer's address and have the printout waiting for you at home. Or, you can share the printer's e-mail address with family and friends. This means that someone can buy Grandma a Web-ready printe

Radical innovation happens in services too. Companies like Mastercard and Visa are now facing strong competition from Internet-based players like PayPal and have to start developing new products. It is interesting that MasterCard has gone beyond the usual approach of acquiring smaller firms and has set up an R&D unit. This may help develop absorbtive capacity and avoid running into integration problems.

An interesting article on the social impact of technology diffusion. In this case it is the way with which (mostly young) Chinese are behaving when they become adopters of motor cars and enjoy the freedom of individual mobility. The business implication is that the way with which a product is used creates demand for complementary goods that are specific to the same behavior. So, understanding such behavior can provide interesting guidance for new products and services

Is private ownership of cars going to decline, in favor of pay-as-you drive car sharing schemes? The shfit from products to services seems to be making the first inroads - at least for younger generations - in what usually was considered a key status symbol and must-have object. Such a shift would of course require a completely different approach by carmakers. Moreover, it is likely to become a powerful force driving the change from traditional to electric cars. 

An interesting paper on the future of mobility, merging transportation science with computing. Maybe mobility will not rely that much on cars (i.e. the product) as much as on the intelligent trasport infrastructure of the future (i.e. the service)

At the Intel Investor Conference on Tuesday, Intel's Paul Otellini opened his remarks by taking a step back to survey the results of the major restructuring that Intel has been implementing since 2006. This change has turned Intel from a company that makes chips into a company that sells platforms, software, and services-the whole stack. "The company has been transformed in a way that is remarkable, and in the aggregate reflects a different kind of company than we've ever had before," Otellini said. Much of this transformation was about getting costs down (read: layoffs) and boosting per-worker productivity, but the most interesting and important part of the story was the software and services piece. Early on in his talk, Otellini set the tone by naming silicon process technology and software as two of Intel's key differentiators from the competition. At a later point in the talk, he went on to explain that back in 2000, "we were just a chip company... over the years we've added a number of things. We've got platforms, software, and services increasingly being added."

Defence suppliers have shifted their business model from simply selling products to ensuring the avaialibility of the related functionality (or "outcomes"). The article provides an overview and a few examples of this change.

Success in business models often comes unexpected and generally is due to complementary products and services. For instance, the app store has been one of the main drivers behind the success of i-phones and has been widely imitated by other smartphone manufacturers. However, it appears that Apple hadn't viewed it as such an important element of its strategy at launch

Even though Second Life is no longer in the headlines, virtual worlds and networks, with virtual currencies being used when paying for virtual goods are well alive and growing. It is evident that innovation is not only about products and services, but also experience

An interesting interview with Dr Robert Cooper, senior consultant to Fortune 500 firms and top scholar in the field of innovation management. Today markets in many countries and industries are flat and increasingly commoditized, gains in market shares are expensive and acquisitions often don't work. In addiction, even traditional product development (for most companies, this means line extensions, improvements and product modifications) seems depleted, and only serves to maintain market share. For R. Cooper, the answer is "true innovation - breakthrough products, services and solutions - that create growth engines for the future and some examples, such as Apple's IPod, are often cited."

Yesterday in Cupertino, CA, the Apple's CEO unveiled at the developers the new iPhone OS 4.0. The new OS is available to iPhone developers today, while the general public will get the update sometime this summer. Apple uses innovators and then early adopters to improve the product, leveraging on their enthusiasm. "We are not the first to offer this service, but we are the best" : Steve Jobs doesn't know moderation and understatement. Some of the OS 4.0 features, as the multitasking, doesn't represents that kind of radical innovation, just because Google did it first. But Apple is aware about giving those features to its product in the right time, according to Jobs. By the way, multitasking is only 1 of the 100 new user features announced and thanks to the early market the OS 4.0 could potentially represent the birth of new paradigms in the operating software market.

Advertising agencies and software developers also welcomed Apple's new iAd network as a potential breakthrough that could give an important boost to the small but fast-growing mobile advertising market. iAd is an OS 4.0 built-in app, which could be the starting point of a new generation of mobile adverts that would be far more engaging than current formats, which Jobs said "suck". Thanks to his company's control Apple's network would be able to serve up more creative forms of advertising to run inside the "apps" users download on to these devices. Advertising inside apps, although still small, has become the hottest corner of the mobile advertising business, prompting a race between Google and Apple. In fact, earlier this year Apple bought Quattro Wireless for $270 million signaling its intention to enter the advertising network space. Quattro is an ad network that spans both mobile websites and smartphone applications. It seems to develop a new strategy and paradigm for the advertisement and a new battle field for the two giants Apple and Google. Which will emerge?

Interestingly, Canon is changing its usual stance of focusing on its own core competencies. With its takeover offer of Océ, it aims to be a key player in the photocopier and printer industry. Quite different from its former approach of focusing on the inner engine of such products, selling or licensing it to other firms, and attempting some limited forward integration in order to avoid double marginalization. It is likely that Canon is recognizing that future value lies in services, and not simply in manufacturing

There are numerous claims that Business Model Innovation is extremely important if you want to stay competitive and increase your revenues. Some would even say that Business Model Innovation has a stronger impact on margin growth than product and service innovations and, at the same time, can disrupt established industries. InnovationManagement asked Business Model Innovation guru Alexander Osterwalder a few questions.