Open Innovation and Hacking the Microsoft Kinect

I think this is a must-look-into case for everyone with a serious interest in open innovation. Why? Because this case has several dilemmas related to threats as well as opportunities that we need to consider when we engage with open innovation.

The story:

As you can read in this BBC story, Microsoft’s Kinect has been hacked only a few days after it officially went on sale. Here are few snippets from the article:

Code to control the motion-capture device has been produced that allows it to be used with a PC rather than the Xbox game console.

A second open source Kinect contest has now also started, sponsored by Google engineer Matt Cutts. He will give $1,000 to whoever produces what he considers the coolest open source Kinect project. A separate $1,000 prize will be given to the team creating tools that make it easy to use Kinect on Linux.

What’s next:

What is happening here is a great example on how lead-users can take products and services into a new direction and perhaps help create new business opportunities.

Furthermore, we witness how people and companies not related to the original producer start crowd-sourcing initiatives in order to innovate beyond the original scope. In short, this highlights many open innovation related opportunities.

Microsoft appears to have taken a strong defensive stance on this. They might have good reason to do so, but should they not also look into how lead-users can help expand the use of the Kinect device? Microsoft could be on to something big with this. Will they seize the opportunity?

I think this is a great case, which raises many more questions that those I just asked.

Let me know what you think.

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Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.