I'm left thinking that there just isn't enough respect for a quality implementation that takes into account the real needs of the current market. To some, it is all about the idea. I'm the last to diss a great idea, but let's face it - folks who think the idea is everything tend to overlook various little bits of reality that don't mesh well with their idea (we call those implementation details) and in general just commoditize the implementation. Ideas like this make great conversations but crappy products.
The truth is these next generation technologies are usually quality implementation with some of the substantial "implementaion details" overcome. To trivialize those details is a mistake - the difficulty of a quality implementation is often overlooked by folks who think the main idea is everything. Often they require some real innovative thinking on their own. Anybody who has taken a tour of duty in one (or two or three) startups will tell you that neither idea nor execution are to be taken for granted - this is hard stuff when you're blazing new trails.
A couple common examples:
- modern virtualization (vmware, xen, kvm, etc..). Tom Killalea of Amazon.Com writes "Virtualization has been around for more than 30 years - ... - yet in 2007 it tipped."
- PBT (ethernet provider backbone transport) - Light Reading writes "Provider Backbone Transport is a new idea in carrier transport networking – or, perhaps more accurately, an old idea in a new guise" - PBT is presented as an ethernet corollary to IP/MPLS.
