Management of Technology: article analysis.
Hewlett-Packard Kittyhawk business case is considered to be classics for management theory and practice. Named after historical place, HP new 1.3 inch hard drive could become a revolutionary product with bright prominent future had it been invented 3-5 years later. Manufacturing at the edge of technical progress always requires significant risk and careful evaluation of possible consequences of success as well as failure. .
Hard disk has impressive 50 years history, however, major innovations to this technology came only at its last decade. Having decentralized organizational structure, Hewlett-Packard had specific divisions for every business line. In particular, the Disk Memory Division (DMD) located inside the Mass Storage Product Group was responsible for Kittyhawk product launch. In the beginning of 90's position of HP Company in the hard disk market was relatively stable and profitable, regardless low sales volumes in comparison with other hard disk manufactures. The main reason for such situation is that DMD concentrated on high performance products within 5.25 and 3.5-inch architectures, targeting only industrial market. Although, obtaining such a niche in the marketplace, HP hard disk business line remained profitable, it was still considered to be an "anomaly" within HP, market leader in printer business. In 1991 newly appointed General Manager of DMD Bruce Spenner was convinced in that HP can obtain proper competitive advantage in hard disk industry by focusing on fundamentally new hard disk architecture with innovative design. Logical tool to accomplish this idea would be an introduction of 2.5-inch drive to satisfy needs of notebook industry. However, industry competitors were too strong "to attack directly." Therefore, it became obvious that HP should pursue new boundaries.
At that very moment, potential demand for revolutionary new disk drives seemed to appear in hand-held computer market and other small forms of computing.