Whereas other industries introduce discontinuous innovations
only occasionally and with much trepidation, high-tech
enterprises do so routinely and as confidently as a born-again
Christian holding four aces. From their inception, therefore,
high-tech industries have needed a marketing model
that coped effectively with this type of product introduction.
Thus the Technology Adoption Life Cycle became central to
the entire sector’s approach to marketing. (People are usually
amused to learn that the original research that gave rise to this
model was done on the adoption of new strains of seed potatoes
among American farmers. Despite these agrarian roots,
however, the model has thoroughly transplanted itself into the
soil of Silicon Valley.)