339. Bleeding Edge Technology

Bleeding edge technology

Bleeding edge technology refers to technology that is so new that the user is required to risk unreliability, and possibly greater expense, in order to use it.

The term bleeding edge is formed as an allusion to "leading edge" and its synonym cutting edge, but implying a greater degree of risk: the "bleeding edge" is in front of the "cutting edge".

Recently however, the term has been increasingly used by the general public to mean "ahead of cutting edge" largely without the negative, risk-associated connotation concurrent with the term's use in more specific fields.

This does not mean that it does not conjure the negative associations with industry professionals.

Criteria

A technology may be considered bleeding edge where it contains a degree of risk, or, more generally, there is a significant downside to early adoption, such as:

• Lack of consensus — competing ways of doing a new things exist and there is little to no indication in which direction the market will go; there is unfamiliarity with the product.
• Lack of knowledge — organizations are trying to implement a new technology or product that the trade journals have not even started talking about yet, either for or against.
• Industry resistance to change — trade journals and industry leaders have spoken against a new technology or product but some organizations are trying to implement it anyway because they are convinced it is technically superior.

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 or ease of use for the sake of increased functionality.