[jkingsbery]

This isn't really just a big company problem, lots of start-ups fail too. It plays out a bit differently at big companies, as those failures tend to be more public but also done in a way that lets the company shuffle people around to the next project. There were lots of start-up companies that tried to build social networks or ERP systems or map applications that most people don't hear about.

[adamc]

Sure, in all cases, acquiring knowledge of what the (potential) customers want is difficult. The point of the article is that vendors of layer N tend to think they know what it takes to succeed at layer N+1, but they don't, because that customer base (N+2) is different.

The other (more important, maybe) thing the article points out is that building layer N-1 turns out to be easier, because layer N is the customer and understands those needs already.