Overcoming technology uncertainty by scalable platform

Under the recent volatile Consumer Electronics (CE) market, product development is becoming difficult. The most remarkable CE product in terms of technology Uncertainty is Digital TV (DTV) as it has many features and still increasing. So, the paper focuses on DTV product, particularly its electronics system platform, as it plays a key role in the development. The authors found out that there are several types of technology uncertainty, depends on the product features, and classified them based on Courtney model. In the past, lots of researches were made in CE system platform. Among them, scalable platform is a new effective solution to develop wide range of product lines with short cycle. The research question is whether scalable platform also effective for the technology uncertainty. Thus, the objective is to investigate how scalable platform contributes to technology uncertainty. As a methodology, a number of interviews with DTV makers were conducted to gather the information in the development. Then comparative analysis was made among them to see the effectiveness of their solutions in terms of technology uncertainty. As a result of the investigation, scalable platform is effective for a certain type of technology uncertainty in DTV development in the recent market environment.