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There's a quote often attributed to Henry Ford that goes, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said 'A faster horse.'" While it's unlikely Ford ever said these words, let alone contemplated polling horse owners about their needs, there is a key takeaway from this narrative: Truly disruptive innovation often emerges independent of customer requests. The IT technology landscape has experienced a flurry of innovations over the past few years, with the all-flash array market, the cloud and converged products quickly gaining market share. Though some of these new products and services address specific needs or represent incremental steps forward, others are more disruptive. It is these more disruptive technologies that create the greatest opportunities for IT leaders. These opportunities not only result from the inherent benefits these technologies engender, but are inherent in the learning curve required to fully maximize those benefits as well. In other words, when a truly disruptive technology appears, few ...