Blog: John Myers

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Turning the Battleship

Ruthie Ackerman recently wrote an article about the continued consolidation of the telecom market. It included the following quote:

...the big three [AT&T, Verizon, Sprint] have the capital to be innovators, while U.S. Cellular has to follow.

While I don't disagree that with the concept that the larger a telecom provider is the larger their "war chest" is for investment in research and development can be. But, I do disagree with the concept that the established telecoms are innovators and that smaller players are followers. Smaller telecoms have the ability to be more flexible in making adjustments to their business plans and have the ability to move to products and services that consumers are looking for. These are things that the established telecoms have a very difficult time doing.

I see ESPN Mobile taking risks ( and failing…) and then migrating to "second movers" like Verizon. I see Apple taking the risk of developing a killer app/device for mobile usage and AT&T taking abuse for “killing trees” to get the billing statements out. Yes, the larger telecom providers have the potential to be innovators, but I rarely see them exercising that initiative.

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Ruthie Ackerman, innovation

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