Book reading: The Innovator's Dilemma

I started reading a new (really old) book: The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton M. Christensen. I was attracted by the book because I have been wondering why big companies cannot defeat small startups.

I only finished the first chapter, the topic of the book is indeed very interesting, and findings are very inspiring. I have no doubt it is a great book to read, especially like us who are in this hi-tech industry. The main argument of the book is that, well-managed big companies can make great success on sustaining technologies: new technologies improving the performance of established products. However, big companies have trouble to catch disruptive technologies: innovations that result in worse product performance in near-term, but typically cheaper, simpler, smaller and more convenient to use. I very much agree the author's point. However, I am slightly disagree that the products made from disruptive technologies are cheaper. Usually, I saw new products radically designed have high price initially, and high margin. For instance, Apple's iPod, iPhone, Amazon's kindle, large-volume SSD hard drives, etc. Typically these products have high profit margin, but smaller market volume initially. And later when more companies invest on these products and competition kicks in, the price drops and products get better.