No hockey stick growth for biometrics

28 July 2009

A new report by Acuity Market Intelligence is predicting the end of the hockey-stick curve sales dream for the biometrics industry. According to Maxine Most, founder of the market research company, the market for biometrics is in a strange state and will most likely not follow the typical path of disruptive technology adoption.

The company’s new report (http://acuity-mi.com/Future_of_Biometrics.html) claims that biometrics have been considered a disruptive innovation on the verge of breakthrough for an extended period of time. Post 9/11 security concerns that were supposed to propel the biometrics market forward created an even greater expectation of rapid market acceleration that never materialized.

In terms of classic emerging technology adoption as defined by Geoffrey Moore in his high-technology market development “bible”, "Crossing the Chasm", this translates into an expectation of rapid Chasm Crossing from early to mainstream markets, followed by a phase of highly targeted and leveraged Bowling Alley market development, progressing to a period of nearly insatiable market demand - the Tornado.

Instead, claims Most, over the past few years the market has essentially passed over the Chasm and stalled out. This is due to two critical factors: 1) the failure of technologies to deliver promised capabilities, and 2) the failure of market players to develop complete, commercially viable solutions to targeted business-breaking problems based on currently available technology capabilities.

There has been far too much infatuation with the belief (wish?) that large government contracts – not targeted commercial opportunities – would be the engine driving rapid market expansion. Whilst progress on the government front has been substantial, Most explains, it has not provided the scale of opportunity necessary for the industry to thrive. The result: market players – with few noteworthy exceptions – have failed to leverage the classic target market development phase of the adoption lifecycle to produce commercially viable, proven solutions which would then be directly applicable to large-scale ID systems.

This has created a market dynamic where biometrics as a class of disruptive or discontinuous technology has not moved completely through its revolutionary market development cycle and yet is now subject to significant evolutionary or continuous innovation. In other words, just as biometrics are beginning to stabilize and deliver on past promises, current expectations continue to be driven by “next generation” technologies.

While there is now clear industry momentum towards solutions development, the market making opportunity has passed. The industry is no longer in a position to define the marketplace but rather is increasingly subject to very specific market driven requirements and customer demands. It is therefore likely that market will experience linear growth rather than the exponential growth most readily associated with Moore’s technology lifecycle, says the report. Rather than the typical "hockey stick" curve of recent innovations such as mobile phones or the Internet, biometrics adoption will mimic the growth curve of ATMs, which achieved roughly 80% adoption through linear growth over a period of 20 years.