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Blog: John MyersApril 28, 2008Bleak Future for the Internet and Telecommunications?Yesterday, Andrea Seabrook has an interesting interview with Jonathan Zittrain about his views on the possible future of the Internet and some of the associated telecommunications aspects: Skype, Tivo, etc. I do not agree with Zittrain's fears about Internet "censorship". However, I do see the possibility of the telecom organizations who want walled garden content and subsidized equipment limiting the access of the Internet. This would get around the Net Neutrality and "open Internet" aspects of FCC rules. NOTE - I am not quite willing to "give up" on open devices. In particular, I think that Zittrain misses the fact that the recent FCC auction included an open device spectrum and that the Internet has shown that there is always a way to open free distributed content (ie VoIP, Video, etc) past the guards of the walled garden. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Jonathan Zittrain, Andrea Seabrook, Walled Garden, Net Neutrality, FCC April 16, 2008Response to declining ecomony: Pre-PaidWhile this particular information has been out for a while, I found the comments of Verizon CFO Doreen Toben to be interesting. "We see prepaid as an opportunity, we felt in the past we left some money on the table." The North American market has been traditionally a post-paid market. It is "ingrained" into our habits much like "all you can eat" billing for usage. The question is will the declining economic conditions be the motivation for both consumers and telecoms to make a significant change? In order for that to happen, you would need a significant downturn in the economy.... Most economists don't see the economic conditions taking that path. Then again "on the other hand..." NOTE - I tried to find that classic economist joke about "On the one hand... but then again on the other hand". I will greatly appreciate it if anyone can find a link for that joke and/or the text of that joke. Drop me an email at John.Myers@BlueBuffaloGroup.com or post your comments to the blog. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Doreen Toben, Verizon, Pre-Paid, Post-Paid March 28, 2008Efficiency vs StrategyI have talked in the past about the work of Gary Hamel and his thoughts on management strategy. I recently picked up his book on the future of management. In one area, Hamel talked about the false assumption that operational excellence/efficiency equates to strategy excellence. When I read that, I thought of the immortal words from the movie Other People's Money: "You know, at one time...there must have been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made...the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw." - Larry the Liquidator This week's news about Motorola splitting their company into separate pieces confirms that while you can run a very operationally excellent business ( ... and what else could you consider the inventors/developers of six sigma ... ) you can in fact run it in a less than optimal direction. Something that I have felt that Motorola has done "very well" for quite some time. NOTE - You can't a discussion like this with bringing up this quote... "We're lost but we're making good time." - Yogi Berra Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Tara Seals, Motorola, Gary Hamel, Strategy, Operational Excellence, Yogi Berra March 26, 2008Cableco vs Teleco?The companies are likely to try to distinguish themselves with advanced mobile data and video services that take advantage of the stockpiles of content they are already adept at licensing. People familiar with the discussions said some cable companies are looking at options to develop their own mobile devices in partnerships with manufacturers. Amol Sharma and Vishesh Kumar have an excellent article today relating to the potential business drivers and competitive advantages of cable companies getting into the wireless data business. Do you think that this experience and potential competitive advantage in content management gives the cablecos an advantage over the telcos? Post your answer to the blog below or send me an email. John Myers Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Amol Sharma, Vishesh Kumar, Cableco, Telco, Competitive Advantage, WiMax March 7, 2008Resistance is Futile... Google will Assimilate YouOk... I'll admit it... I'm a Star Trek fan. I loved the original and I really appreciated TNG. One of all-time best 'races' in the Star Trek series is/are/were the Borg. They just kept coming. Often times the Borg would straight forward. Sometimes they would be subtle. Google is starting to act a lot like the Borg in terms of telecommunications. For example, banging on the door of the FCC and Net Neutrality is Google being straight forward. And, announcing an app that will allow developers to build robust, third party/off-deck applications for mobile devices in an optimized online/offline mode is Google being subtle. While it’s not storming the gates of the wireless content "castle", this is definitely a way for Google to drive a wedge between the established telecoms and their ability to lock the walled garden for content and services. Imagine if you will bandwidth intensive applications attempting to use an over-utilized wireless data network. The developers can either go the "on-deck" route with the carriers to get optimization... or... the developers can go the Google route and sell the third-party apps directly to the end-user and bypass the carrier. This is the type of thing that Google is particularly good at in business. And, I don't use a particularly good way for the established telecoms to prevent it from happening... unless they want to start blocking that Google traffic from reaching the Internet.... I believe that the FCC and the courts have already ruled on that one. NOTE - For BI/DW applications, this will be a boon for the leap to the wireless device. Reducing the latency / headaches of high bandwidth applications to the smartphone, does that sound like any applications that we know... :) Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Mark Long, Google, Google Gears, Off-Deck Content, Walled Garden February 27, 2008Dumb like a FoxI have made no bones about the fact that I think that the established telecom service providers are hurtling toward commoditization at an amazing pace with the likes of iTunes, Google and Second Life driving the bus. However, Rich Karpinski has a great look at the pending Yahoo sale and why the established telecos will be around for quite some time. They might be around as a "relatively" smart pipe, but I'm sure that they will be making lots of revenue. I just think that the content providers will be making the big margins... Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Rich Karpinski, telecom business model, dumb pipe, smart pipe February 22, 2008And who said that collusion was just for oil companies?"Collusion is an agreement, usually secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to deceive, mislead, or defraud others of legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically involving fraud or gaining an unfair advantage and can involve "wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship between the colluding parties." Wow. You head off to the desert for a couple of days and the established telecos get into a pricing war that looks like a "gas sale" at the four stations that sit on the corner of a major intersection. While I do doubt that the established telecos are involved in true collusion, facts like that never get in the way of a good "collusion" story in the press or from a consumer protection organization. In any event, this is another example of how telecom pricing, in particular telecom pricing the in the US, is heading not toward consumption based billing, but rather toward "all you can eat" buffet style pricing. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Unlimited Pricing, Collusion, Business Model February 8, 2008Hook 'em Early! And often...I'll admit it.... I'm an ESPN junkie ( ... wow there's a surprise... ).... Whenever I have made a video service decision in the past 15 years I always start that the tier that ESPN is included on. ESPN is my default homepage. By default I watch ESPN while traveling. I think that ESPN knows this and that I'm not alone.... ESPN has been able to play hardball with cable and satellite operators over my habits for years. Now, it appears that ESPN is starting to play hardball with a new generation of service providers... ISPs. With ESPN360, ESPN is now attempting to get a per subscriber fee from ISPs or block requests from their customers. As part of this, they are offering the service "free" to those in the .mil and .edu domains. The former is a great PR coup. The latter is about hooking the college age viewer on content and making them a "willing" participant in ESPN's negotiations with the ISPs in 3-5 years. Personally, I like the move by ESPN. It shows innovation and chutzpah. It also shows that established telecoms might soon have to deal with higher and higher content fees just like cable companies have had to deal with for years. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Brian Stelter, ESPN, subscriber fees, content costs February 6, 2008Bowing to the Analysts?This month I wrote an article that says it is ok to not be #1 or #2 in market share. I tried to focus on the fact that there is plenty of revenue to be made if you have vision and support for your business plan. Then I come across a pundit / analyst who thinks that AT&T will sooner as opposed to later drop out of the video business because it is just too expensive. While I don't doubt that AT&T could be chased from the video business if they continue to acquire customers at such a high rate ( ... heck see disney's two mvno efforts... ); I doubt that AT&T will abandon U-verse quite so quickly. This comes from the fact that U-verse isn't just about video, but rather pushing the limits of connectivity to the home. There is a lot more at stake than just providing video services.
January 23, 2008You gotta spend $$ to make $$Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of my all-time favorite movies. One of my favorite quotes is from Ferris' dad: "You gotta spend money to make money.... ya bone head..." I basically implied ... err ... said... yelled this at Motorola in September. Today, Motorola released information about their 4th quarter performance. Or should I say lack of performance... I agree with Colin Barr's opinion about how Carl Icahn might be ready to add Motorola to his collection of investments/targets:
With Google set to enter a handset market that already features Nokia and Apple, perhaps Greg Brown should reconsider spending that research and development dollars before Icahn decides that there's at least a $1 billion in savings to boost the stock price... Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Colin Barr, Motorola, Business Strategy, Carl Icahn January 14, 2008Riding the Wave part 2Earlier this month, I pointed out an effective use of wireless advertising/marketing. This week a good study ( ...warning! reserach report! warning!... ) came out that shows exactly how big the wireless advertising market could get. Again, in my opinion, this will be consumer value decision before the "wave" that started in APAC moves into the Americas. Some subscribers will embrace a way to make their telecom bills lower. Some subscribers will protect their privacy over cost. If I had to guess, this will break along "generational" lines and not be based on other demographics. Just as Gen X has had much different ideas than the Baby Boomers, the current generation of teenage "hardcore" Internet users ( ... trained by google and yahoo with ad placement ... ) will have no issues with ads place not only in their SMSs, but their voice calls as well. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Advertsing, Generation X, Baby Boomer January 7, 20082008 CES: Consumer Electronics or Consumer Content?The 2008 Consumer Electronics Show will have a "telecom flavor" with a keynote speech being presented by the CEO of Comcast. Kimberly Johnson looks at how Comcast, and other telecoms, hope to leverage their presence at CES into promotion for their content offerings. An interesting concept for a show that is dedicated to the "consumer electronics" market. The aspect of Comcast's participation that I liked most was their hopes for their "Comcast Media Center". It seems that Comcast has put a significant investment into their media center and hopes to provide services for content developers that will feed either their own "pipe" or the "pipe" of others. Either way, I like how Comcast has found an related diversification niche and looking to exploit it. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Kimberly Johnson, Comcast, CES, Business Model, Related Diversification January 2, 2008Wireless Marketing: Wave of the Future? Invasion of Privacy?For many years, the hype has been that advertisements will be personalized and location based. Probably the best "future" example was in the movie Minority Report where a billboard would recognize the human retina and the advertising would be "addressed" to that person. In the near future, wireless marketing hopes to be that combination of location based and personalized. Geoff Livingston takes a look at what Quicksilver used to promote big wave surfing competitions. While many technology prognosticators ( ...and wireless marketing managers... ) have long predicted that this would be the way of the future, I agree with the message from Livingston that wireless marketing is still for a select few organizations and situations. Also, believe that we are not as close as the prognosticators would like to wireless users allowing this advertising content to be brought to their phones without their permission. The turning point for that level of "intrusion" will probably be when the value provided by the advertising ( read free or deep discounted wireless services ) outweighs the costs. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Wireless Marketing, Geoff Livingston, Quicksilver December 19, 2007Truth and ConsequencesLast week Chiefs Head Coach Herm Edwards spoke the truth and he got in trouble for it. It appears that in Graham Finnie's recent article he might have a little of that situation. Nearly 8 of 10 telecom execs surveyed said that telecom service providers will expand and become more value-add organizations in the future. Those other 2 execs indicated that the telecom providers may become more of a commodity in the future. I love the honesty of the 20% or approximately 25 of the 126 surveyed. However, let's hope they aren't contradicting their stated business plan goals and/or the wishes of their stakeholders. That could lead to a change of guard in those organizations. Not that it takes a bout of brutal honesty to change leadership at a telecom these days... :) Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, value-add, commodity, Graham Finnie, Herm Edwards December 5, 2007Satellite Radio going the way of MVNO?It appears that XM and Sirius radio could be heading the way of most MVNOs.... Bradley Meacham has a look at the financial situation facing both companies and the FCC's role in their future survival. The question that I have is: How significant a role should the FCC should have in the potential merger of the two companies? If you define the XM and Sirius market as just satellite radio, then yes. The FCC should have a large role to play. If you define the market that XM and Sirius play in as the overall "remote distance" audio provider market, then I would say that the FCC should take a more hands off role. HD radio is providing a strong alternative to those who don't need Howard Stern, but want better sounds quality. Internet radio continues to grow as another alternative. Also, this is a similar business model decision as the MVNOs like ESPN Mobile. Is the premium content worth the hardware AND the monthly subscription? For a publicly traded/financed company, it may not be possible. But, for a private firm or a division of a larger provider, satellite radio might make sense. Can you say DirecTV Radio? Besides, as a resident of Colorado where there's nothing like satellite reception on the north side of a large rock (read mountain, etc); I have never quite seen the appeal of paying $20+ per month to listen to an intermittent signal when there's a perfect good free one available... :) NOTE - There are times when I drive across Kansas and Nebraska when I would dearly pay for a little Howard Stern... :) Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Satellite Radio, Bradley Meacham, XM, Sirius, FCC, Business Model November 28, 2007Tear down this wall....In 1987, Ronald Reagan offered the following words: General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Is it possible that in 2007 Eric Schmidt offered the following with the Android announcement? "Chairman Seidenberg, open this gateway. Mr. Seidenberg, tear down this walled garden!" Dan Jones takes a look at Verizon Wireless' decision to open their networks in 2008. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Business Strategy, Walled Garden, Open Networks, Dan Jones, Verizon Wireless, Google Android, Ivan Seidenberg, Eric Schmidt, Ronald Reagan November 19, 2007Bring Something Unique to Your IndustryThe next time that I hear about how IT departments want to drive to a standard, I will forward to them either this Elana Varon interview with Gary Hamel, famed business strategist, or just send them in the direction of his new book. Hamel rightly points out in Varon's interview that too many IT organizations are moving toward a best practices model rather than a best for business model: "So many companies are now running the same software platforms, whether Oracle or SAP or whatever. Increasingly, we rely on the same handful of offshoring companies or IT service companies. There are a whole lot of things that IT folks have to do to keep up as part of the IT arms race, but in the end the only thing that's really going to make a difference is whether you're using IT in a unique way to do unique things where you don't find any other benchmarks. If you ask the average CIO what percentage of his total budget and headcount is devoted to things that are unique to his industry, I think it's probably too small a number." For every opportunity to optimize business operations, those IT departments are taking one step away from maximizing the unique attributes of the business. In telecommunications, management needs to focus their strategies, and budgets, on what will break them from the pack of the "established" telecos (ie AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Telefonica) and position them for a unique position or offering that will provide competitive advantage. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Elana Varon, Gary Hamel, Business Strategy November 16, 2007Living in a Partner EcosystemIt is one thing to dream about opening up the walled garden of mobile content. It is quite another to start enabling that "open garden". Google is planning/annoucing their vision of this open vision. However, Nokia is getting a taste of what it means to "break" the walled garden compliments of Warner Music Group. The trick in this situation will be whether Nokia can make Warner happy before their investor stakeholders feel the costs of the Ovi system are outweighing the benefits. I would bet that Nokia will bend to investor pressure first.... Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Nokia, Warner Music Group, Walled Garden November 14, 2007Another Fall... Another Disney MVNO ObitLast October, I opined on the demise of Mobile ESPN. This fall, Antonette Goroch comments on the fall of Disney Mobile. The part that I like most about Goroch's argument is that she isn't easily sucked in by the "MVNOs are doomed to failure" argument. She specifically notes that perhaps it is the execution the business plans for these MVNOs that is the issue.... Then again, I think that I have heard that argument before... :) Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, MVNO, Disney Mobile, Antonette Goroch November 9, 2007Friday Question: Voice: Content or Voice?I have a friendly bar bet going with a friend of mine over the concept of "voice" in the "next generation" ( ...sorry for the cheesy marketing speak... i just got back from a conference... ) of telecom services. One of us has voice as its own category of product. The other has voice has being part of the all encompassing "content" (ie video, data, music, etc) aspect of future telecom products and services. In your opinion, which one is right? You can comment to the blog below or you can send me an email at John.Myers@BlueBuffaloGroup.com. Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Voice, Content, Product Management, Business Strategy October 29, 2007It's The Content StupidFor regular readers, you know that that I’m not a huge fan of the “walled garden” concept for online, mobile and just about any content. However, I do understand and appreciate those business models and the right of those companies to leverage their intellectual property for short-term financial gain and long-term irrelevance ( ...will the last AOL employee please turn off the lights in Virginia… ) It appears that the more and more established mainstream media outlets are staring to understand the value of opening their content and breaking down the barriers to consumers partaking of their content. The New York Times, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal all have plans to make their content less restricted. I personally applaud these efforts and hope that they do a great job of making them available to me via a mobile browser so that I can read the content online via my phone the next time that I’m stuck at the Dallas airport waiting for an unnamed airline ( ...their initials are aa... ) to decide if they are going to fly on time or just continue faking the flight schedule…. Technorati Tags: |
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