As we saw, the nature of the technology involved (components versus architecture and incremental versus radical), the magnitude of the risk, and the time horizon over which the risks needed to be taken had little relationship to the patterns of leadership and followership observed. Rather, if their customers needed an innovation, the leading firms somehow mustered the resources and wherewithal to develop and adopt it. Conversely, if their customers did not want or need an innovation, these firms found it impossible to commercialize even technologically simple innovations.
