@tess if I understand the article, they're dying because they stopped innovating (or stopped innovating in the areas that matter), thus losing first mover advantage to cheaper alternatives; or is there more to it?
@jpetazzo I've been watching the company--and occasionally owning stock in it--forever. I was and am a big fan.
And what you're saying is exactly the picture I get.
They broke on to the scene with some really clever innovations, some approaches to machine control, some algorithms, really interesting solutions to problems that go beyond simple product engineering.
But now the rest of the world caught up, and their areas of innovation are no longer the ones that really matter. And that lightening didn't strike twice--they didn't find a new way to tackle a new problem.
That doesn't take away from what they did.
One way to think of it by analogy is as if someone invents an amazing algorithm to operate computers with limited memory but a few years later the market is churning out RAM so cheaply that it becomes effectively limitless.
Still a brilliant solution, just to a problem that no longer looms.
