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Information technology (IT) innovation can be defined as the creation and new organizational application of digital computer and communication technologies. The paper suggests that IT innovation theory needs to be expanded to analyze IT innovations in kind that exhibit atypical discontinuities in ITinnovation behaviors by studying two questions. First, can a model of disruptive IT innovations be created to understand qualitative changes in IT development processes and their outcomes so that they can be related to architectural discontinuities in computing capability? Second, to what extent can the observed turmoil among systems development organizations that has been spawned by Internet computing be understood as a disruptive IT innovation? To address the first question, a model of disruptive IT innovation is developed. The model defines a disruptive IT innovation as an architectural innovation originating in the information technology base that has subsequent pervasive and radical impacts on development processes and their outcomes. These base innovations establish necessary but not sufficient conditions for subsequent innovation behaviors. To address the second question, the impact of Internet com-1Michael Myers was the accepting senior editor for this paper. 2Please note that the authorship order is alphabetical to recognize the equal effort put into this paper by the coauthors.

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Internet as Radical Innovation Internet computing can be viewed as a radical IS innovation as follows: (1) Unique: Internet computing added new elements into the existing computing architectures that significantly departed from existing alternatives. These included a universal thin browser and the idea of hyperlinking included in HTML (Lewin and Volberda 1999; Van Den Bosch et al. 1999). Firm-owned network-based systems with traditional user interfaces were insufficient substitutes for Web interface-based systems across the shared, worldwide infrastructure. (2) Novel: The elements were organized using new architectural principles including open and universal access through URL resources (http) and an n-tier architecture, which separated data, business rules, access, and control flow. Knowledge of traditional systems patterns, languages, platforms, architecture, and designs provided little assistance in learning the prerequisite vast, volatile, and resource-intensive new skills for building Internet systems. This can be contrasted with a move from network to relational data base systems, which did not significantly change architectural principles, the types of applications being built, or how they were viewed or built; or the adoption of UML after SAD as a baseline for designing applications.

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