Ask HN: What are the signs a piece of technology will become commoditized?

But here are some signs to tell when a technology goes from an innovation to a commodity

1) An increase in competitors is a sure sign of commoditization.

Increase in competitors -> price war mostly -> existing core technology becomes commoditized as players start to differentiate with value-added services/products.

2) A new technology emerges that's 10x better on some dimension but still out of reach and a few years out of most customers' hands. It forces existing market for the technology to demand lower and lower prices for old tech -> commoditization of that tech as original innovator no longer might find it worth it to pursue that product.

3) Regulation could some time force commoditization. Often seen in healthcare/drugs production.

I'm sure there are others. The common vain is that there's a rapid increase in competition.

Apple and Google created API's and enrollment processes to manage devices (device lock, wipe, etc.). Companies created software to consume those API's, the biggest being AirWatch, Mobile Iron, and MaaS360. AirWatch was acquired by VMware for $1.5billion in 2014 and Mobile Iron went public, rising 22% in the first day of trading. MaaS360 was acquired by IBM for several hundred million.

At first, license fees were high, competition wasn't too fierce, and the market was booming.

Then many more low-cost players moved in. Open source MDM software appeared. One company (Miradore) gives MDM away for free to hook customers on IT management fees and various other upsells. Mobile Iron stock is down 70% for the year.

I was listening to an NPR podcast this morning and heard an advertisement for a product named Bushel doing Apple MDM. I think the definition of commoditized tech is when you hear companies advertising on NPR.

My take on the situation is that it's risky to build a core business merely consuming other company's API's. Doing analysis and more advanced things, sure. But simply executing an API command is not special. The MDM list of features is completely controlled by Apple and Android manufacturers, and anytime they release a new feature, every MDM player instantly gets access to it. The only differentiation between products becomes how effectively they use the pre-existing API's (scaling, integration with other enterprise products, etc.) and pricing. This obviously becomes a race-to-the-bottom on pricing, destroying margins.

The reason I know so much about this is that I work at a company called Apperian, focusing on Mobile Application Management (MAM). We use to compete with the MDM guys, but it's a completely different game now. All of our core technology is unique, most of it is patented / patent pending, and we solve problems that the MDM API's cannot. We dominate the MAM industry, although niche and much smaller than the MDM sector, is growing very quickly. It would be extremely difficult and costly for a company to implement what we do, in contrast to the MDM guys.

It's been very interesting to watch the rise and fall of big players, as our sales keep booming. I will keep watching the drama unfold.

Do you count the loss in sales as cost? Or time to rework something? Sometimes it's hard to figure out if there's going to be a correlation before you do it.

About 10 years ago, we tried to do most of our work offshore. Company said they could hire 5 engineers for the price of one here in the states. We started looking overpaid and I'm sure the managers thought we were. It didn't last long. We still offshore, but it's much more strategic.