Innovation is never short, but it can hardly survive the biz process, bureaucracy, or chimney effect.  That’s why we can seldom see good innovative product or service in the market.

The best example who made great success without biz model interference I knew was Apple’s iTunes + iPod.  And the best example about biz model or company’s process killed the innovation was exactly the former king in portable audio market, Sony & it's Vaio Music Stick.

There were plenty of mp3 player in the market before Apple launched its iPod, but none of them enjoyed such commercial success as Apple's iPod, even the premium brands of portable audio products.   Among those premium brands, Sony could be considered as most prestigious one, who coined the word "walkman" for its product, which consequently became the pet name of all portable audio players.  Sony had been devoting to development of an up-to-date product before Apple for long.  Before iPod, Sony made a stick (or pen) shape of portable audio player built in flash memory and Li-ion battery, not much different than iPod nano but the shape, and it was called, "Sony Vaio Music Stick", which my friend Samson bought in the year 2000.  Due to the consideration of copyright protect, rather limited capacity (64M or 128M only) and high price (this might not really matter, since few years later, when Apple launched its iPod whose price was also very high.) that gadget never sold well.  In consideration of company’s process and biz model (mainly copyright protection), so Sony lost its edge as well as market share in portable audio market to Apple, who was a newcomer, having not been in portable audio market before, so it did not have any baggage, legacy or company’s process to kill the innovation. 

This is "Sony Vaio Music Stick", which is a stick shape portable audio player built in flash memory and Li-ion battery.  The product Sony put in market in year 2000 whose concept was almost identical with Apple's iPod Nano.  It was made as stick (pen) shape due to cylinder Li-ion battery cell.  Few years later, Lithium polymer battery was developed to commercial use, so Apple's iPod nano could be made as rectangular shape.