Sometimes sheer audacity can overcome superior forces, or a well entrenched position.

Whether its Alexander the Great sending 300 men to scale an impossible cliff (the Sogdian Rock) in the middle of the night, or a new market entrant with a distruptive business model and a clever approach to IP.

Some examples of industries clearly under this type of attack at the moment are pharmaceuticals, the music industry and telecommunications providers.

What place does the traditional ‘brand / innovator vs generic’ thinking have in a world where many of the ‘generic’ companies have their own New Chemical Entities in late development and ‘brand’ companies have their own generic subsidiaries?

What % of the world’s music is actually listened to on a compact disc?

How many people will be willing to pay the traditional mobile phone contract when they can get an internet phone which uses free hot spots in the ever-increasingly wirelessly networked world?

The foundations for these battles were laid years ago, but we’re just starting to see these battles commence.