Costs and Benefits
The rewards for successful early adoption of new technologies can be great in terms of established a comparative advantage in otherwise competitive markets; unfortunately, the penalties for "betting on the wrong horse" (e.g. in a format war) or choosing the wrong product are equally large. Whenever an organization decides to take a chance on bleeding edge technology there is a chance that they will be stuck with a white elephant or worse.
Bleeding edge computer software, especially open source software, is especially common. Indeed, it is usual practice for open-source developers to release new, bleeding edge, versions of their software fairly frequently, sometimes in a rather unpolished state to allow others to review, test, and, in many cases, contribute to. Therefore, users who want features that have not been implemented in older, more stable releases of the software are able to choose the bleeding-edge version. In such cases, the user is willing to sacrifice stability, reliability, or ease of use for the sake of increased functionality.
Read more about this topic: Bleeding Edge Technology
Famous quotes containing the words costs and/or benefits:
“The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.”
—Adam Smith (1723–1790)
“Through all opposition the personal benefits of the reform [dress] [bracketed word in original] have compensated; but had it been mainly sacrifice, the thought of working for the amelioration of women and the elevation of humanity would still have been the beacon-star guiding me on amid all discouragements.”
—Susan Pecker Fowler (1823–1911)