During a recent presentation, an interesting question was posed to the audience—Are inkjet presses a disruptive technology? This article will discuss the definition of a “disruptive technology,” determine if the data surrounding inkjet presses fulfills the criteria, and explore the ongoing impact of production inkjet printing.

The term “disruptive technology” was coined by Clayton Christensen in his 1995 article entitled Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave. Christensen also used this phrase in his 1997 bestseller entitled The Innovator's Dilemma, which further categorizes technologies as follows:

Based on these definitions, inkjet is more of a disruptive technology because it has the potential to replace (rather than making improvements to) offset and electrophotographic printing. Although I believe that inkjet presses are a disruptive technology, they don’t yet fulfill Christensen’s original definition of the phrase.