disruptive technology, noun

A new product or service that disrupts an industry and eventually wins most of the market share in that industry.

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen coined the phrase "disruptive technologies" in his 1997 best seller, The Innovator's Dilemma, as radical innovations that are often the catalysts for emerging markets.

"Although they initially emerge in small markets that seem remote from the mainstream, they are disruptive because they subsequently can become full-blown competitors against established products." - Clayton Christensen