Law of conservation of modularity

[Via Windley's blog] Clayton Christensen emphasizes some of the principles which he elaborated in Innovator's Dilemma

Key questions which every startup should answer

How do we beat the competition? Which customers should we target? What products will our customer want to buy? How should we distribute to and communicate with our customers? Which things should our company do and what can our suppliers do? How can we avoid commoditization? Who should be on our management team? What is the best organizational structure? How can we know when to change course? Whose investment capital will help and whose might hurt?

Also talks about "Law of conservation of modularity" - important idea where either the integrated system or the subsystems need to be modular and comfortable in order to optimize performance for the other. Main takeway - "You make money at the borders to the modular(inefficient) layers"

It would be worthwhile to analyze emerging modular layers in the specific context of IT infrastructure management.