Technology, Strategy and Consumer Behavior

Last Friday's WSJ had an interesting cover story about how HP is fighting retailers to shape the behavior of new digital camera users who want to make prints from their images. What's at stake is huge: HP gets a lot of its profit from ink and pictures printed at home use a lot of it. Stores like Walmart, Costco and Walgreen's have long counted on the foot traffic that regular visits to drop off film for processing provided -- and are aggressively installing digital printing kiosks to retake this market. For an even more dramatic example of how the dynamic between technology and strategy has the potential to radically alter consumer behavior and upset the status quo, check out what Amazon is doing in Japan with cellphones. Very interesting.