The Lock-In Of Technological Path And Its Unlocking In The Horizon Of Complexity Science

A technology-economy system is established through which the existence and evolution of IT is to be studied. The traditional industrial system gives its place to this new one when IT emerged. The IT technology-economy system is a typical sub-system of the whole economy system where IT exists and evolves in a complexity way. The system is characterized by 9 features , such as many inhomogeneous agents, abundant relationships , nonlinear effect, history mattering ,etc . One of these features, the nonequilibrium state , gives birth to the new technological path . In the natural disequilibrium IT market, lock-in of technological path and its unlocking makes the two basic forms of IT complex evolution.Microsoft witnesses the emergence of this sub-system and its mature . The company applies information rules to practice successfully by stepping into a new technological path, or vendor's lock-in in right time, etc. Its market status and the company own are outcomes of the evolution of this software technology-economy system ( a typical sub-system ) . But the government of America failed to recognize this fact and tried to break the company into two last century in order to keep a pure competition market. Otherwise the meaning of its structure, its act and its performance changes much in the horizon of complexity science .The real challenge of IT companies like Microsoft comes from the dynamic of the system. The scientific discoveries, the breaking through of technology development, the new business patterns are able to break down the existing lock-in. The secret of success for IT company is to establish lock-ins, and then break them down, without a halt. Microsoft did in that way, and is compelled to keep the way in the future.