I was reading a book that referred to the notion that to get people to switch to something new it has to be 10 times better. The book specifically referred to this as Drucker's Law and went on to discuss how Christensen's Disruptive Innovation is probably a simpler way to innovate since you don't have to figure out how to make something 10 times better, but rather come up with a way to change people's expectations.
Problem is, 20 minutes of Googling and I can't find any reference to Drucker's Law as defined in this way. I did see that Guy Kawasaki maybe has mentioned this 10x theory, but he didn't really take credit for it nor did he cite somebody else for originating the notion.
Without some kind of analysis of startups and failure it would be difficult to verify this idea of 10x. It does sound pretty good, but seems to fail the sniff test for fictional empircal numbers (those that don't end in 0 or 5 so that a random number you throw out feels less like what it is. ie, We estimated it would take 472 hours to build the UI in Java and 17 hours to build it in Rails.)
I suppose I'm fixated on this notion because maybe it explains why many startups fail. I mean if VCs could just ask, is this 10x better than the last thing, it'd be pretty easy to just say no.
The book BTW is, George Gilder's, The Silicon Eye.
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I thought the quote about it being better to ask forgiveness than permission was a Guy Kawasaki thing (The Macintosh Way), but looking on wikipedia it seems to have come from Grace Hopper. So much for my GK tie-in! Didn't know computer bug was also coined by her. Interesting reading.
WRT your original point about rails and java.... I think if your app fits a certain pattern, rails would be quicker. But not having done enough RoR I can't say how rich/stable/etc the 3rd party library support is -- should you even need it. You gotta love being able to override everything -- and also act on methods that don't exist. Way cool.
Well, whether it was 10x or 8.45x, the fact that the measure is "better" is pretty much crap any way. Its not like you can measure "better" easily. Is Leopard 8.45x better than Vista? Is a Wii 8.45x better than a PS2? PS3?
I think the Christensen model has surpassed all others, including Porter, as a means of predicting what might work, why, and how. Competing with non-consumption isn't easy, but if you pull it off, it seems to work _very_ well.
Apple has succeeded by convincing us that there is a new standard of quality, namely "makes sense" and "works together", and kicking ass on that metric. Same for the Wii: the new metric isn't polygons per second but "fun interacting with the platform". Defining new metrics for success is an interesting model.
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