I saw a great documentary on the plane the other day. It was called The Lightbulb Conspiracy and provided a telling glimpse into the economic philosophy of planned obsolescence. As its name suggests planned obsolescence is the design approach that builds in the time of failure at the point of production. The doco used the thread of modern day printers that are pre-designed to seize upon reaching a counted page limit – say 5,000 – to tell the backstory.

The concept of planned obsolescence takes its origins from economic theory before being applied in the early decades of the 20th century. The story begins where engineers increased the functioning life of the commercial light bulb from the 1,000 hours established by Thomas Edison, into the tens of thousands of hours. There is even a light bulb still illuminating a fire station in the US that has been burning continuously for over 100 years.

At the point the light bulb manufacturers realised that they were designing themselves out of business, and faced with the possibility of having to sell far fewer units than would be sustainable for the industry, a cartel of international companies including Philips, OSRAM and others agreed to secretly reverse engineer their light bulbs all the way back to the 1,000 hours of useful life to ensure steady product turnover inperpetuity. A great story, but what can it tell us about business?

Well the beauty of the light bulb of course is that it is a low-cost technology that allows everyone to not have to sit in the dark (it was one of the greatest catalysts for astronomical growth in industrial production). Not only that, but it is simple to manage and maintain and therefore provides a wonderful analogy for the accessibility of technology to the modern business. Even more than that, when you understand the whole backstory of the light bulb, it brilliantly illuminates the position that “low-entry high-quality” is nothing but a myth.

When it comes to just about any kind of technology today, the barrier to entry into anything is very low and it is just getting lower and lower. Compared to even 2005, the availability of technology and related services is remarkably high in 2012 thanks to the fast maturity of cloud and the accessibility of internet connectivity. When combined with the self-aware, DIY, or BYOD technology trends, the effects are significantly multiplied. This is of course all wonderful for the start-up or small business but its real impact on determining future success for companies with any greater vision can be significant.

The thing is, while the barrier to entry may be low, the barrier to maturity in terms of technology, its strategic application, and its broad ranging functional utility remains remarkably high. IMHO the term “You get what you pay for” is pushed aside far too readily today. This is true whether viewed through the lens of required knowledge, required effort and required dollars.

Whether talking about websites or business software or hardware and devices, the fact is that businesses can get “in” really cheaply but all cheap technology services have a ceiling. They have their own style of planned obsolescence and, if not thought through at the point of purchase with the same planned and careful consideration as enterprise IT, will inhibit many small-to-medium businesses in making the transition.

We observe this a fair bit in the work that we do. Whether it is smaller businesses that think and act like consumers when it comes to technologies or companies that simply get to a certain size and then go pop; part of the challenge is that they can’t transition either from a skills perspective (i.e. can’t think big) or more frequently from a technology perspective – still can’t afford to “go big” – or try to without the right technologies.

If you know what to look for it is easily observable in most tech trends and bubbles. Take the e-Book phenomenon for example. This trend was initially held up to be a low barrier to entry breakthrough for anyone to publish anything. But the fact is that the bog standard eBook model will only get you so far without the strategy, skills or desire to make the technology platform work for you beyond point of entry. Take the Apple version, iBooks.

For the average punter it is clearly a low barrier to entry bubble, but in this case it has sufficiently higher barriers to maturity that will ensure it is a game changer for the right businesses. Businesses or individuals can publish anything at a low level (and comparative low quality) but to do it right company’s would benefit from a US Tax ID, they may consider a longer term approach to sourcing an ISBN for every publication, they will be comfortable in committing to partner revenue thresholds, and design considerations will be paramount to brand longevity. While there are cheap and free versions to help companies along (like various flavours of Lulu) they are not necessarily ideal as a business model for scale.

Cheap technology does not, and will not ever replace great business and IT strategy. Conversely great strategy will always tell businesses exactly when it will be time to replace cheap technology well ahead of the point of failure, and the ultimate planned obsolesence of the business. Businesses simply must plan to replace low barrier to entry technology – or become obsolete.