Chapter 8 – Technology and Product Management

Chapter Features

The chapter includes a wide variety of high-tech examples to support the chapter content, including:

•    Apple’s iPod and iTunes:  the “walled garden” approach to product development
•    Memjet Home and Office:  Breakthrough Printer Technologies
•    Technology Solutions for Global Problems:  The world’s first solar-powered hearing aids by Godisa (Botswana)
•    modu phone jackets and modularity
•    A technical appendix on the patent life cycle process

Sneak Peek at Chapter Content

Should a company develop new technologies internally or should it purchase new technologies from another company?
Should a company license its technology to other industry players, or should it keep its technology proprietary and offer its own products to the marketplace?
How should a firm conceptualize its product architecture in terms of platforms, derivatives, modularity, and customization?
What factors inhibit a firm’s ability to “kill” new product projects that are not meeting projections?
What is the role of the product manager in the high-tech company?
When should companies incur the time and expense of patenting their innovations?  What is the patent life cycle process?
Other topics include: adding a services component to the high-tech product revenue mix; managing intellectual property rights as a strategic asset; understanding digital rights management; business method patents, and patents for “naturally occurring phenomena” such as genes, prime numbers, and traditional medicinal plants; managing the patent life cycle process for both international patents and US patents.
Listing of Chapter topics from the Table of Contents