John Dvorak's recently published article The Myth of Disruptive Technologies is a case in point of why you shouldn't listen to journalists who aren't technologists.
He starts out on the inflammatory side labelling Clayton Christensen's idea as "the biggest crock of the new millenium". Then, he says the problem with our society is that we rely upon such false-premise concepts to make blind business decisions. He virtually discounts the idea that good business models are useful in making such decisions, and rather than any sound logical basis for tearing apart Christensen's work, he uses anecdotal, spurious, and sometimes false descriptions of his hindsight about the computer industry to declare that nothing has ever been disruptive. Further, he proposes no alternative way of thinking.
There are certainly more models of technological change than Christensen's. While Dvorak hints at this at the end of his article, I really don't think he has a very good idea himself of what happens in the industry and why. If so, I wish he'd enlighten us.
For myself, Christnsen's notions have been extremely valuable and I highly recommend his books. Don't take them as gospel please, but clearly this is a step in the right direction at coming up with an analytical language for determining the business drivers for technological change.
