Summer Liu wrote an interesting snippet about Motorola’s new project that is aiming to produce a phone that will last forever. The concept is to make all parts of the phone interchangeable, allowing customers to customize to their liking and replace individual pieces whenever any component breaks down. With this new product, Motorola could be able to reduce a great deal of waste and the company could become extremely socially responsible.

But there are a lot of disruptive impacts on the company associated with customizable products. For one, this new modular phone concept is a huge investment and Motorola’s variable costs will increase due to added time and technology. This could lead to a very expensive final product and customers may not be willing to pay for these extra costs. Secondly, the complexities may threaten the product’s quality. Thirdly, given that this is a brand new idea that will compete in a broad industry, it’s difficult to forecast the size of its market demand. Computers are easily customizable but very few consumers barely add ram, hard drive space, or upgrade graphics cards. It seems like a neat idea but it may only end up appealing to a small niche group.