Here's a terrific short article about telecom and "infotech" business models--how and why they differ, and the implications, especially for telecom, going forward. Lots of great insights throughout, but here's what I thought was the key paragraph:
Here's a terrific short article about telecom and "infotech" business models--how and why they differ, and the implications, especially for telecom, going forward.
Lots of great insights throughout, but here's what I thought was the key paragraph:
Telcos invest in barriers to entry, not communication per se. The infotech company seeking to become a supplier to a telephone company will not find much interest in enabling cool new services. The telco will buy routers supporting the deep-packet inspection necessary to identify and isolate VoIP traffic.
At least one commenter picked up on this point, but had a different take on it:
"Telcos invest in barriers to entry, not communication per se." - Every public company should do this...barriers to entry is a competitive advantage and I see no reason why it is not good...
Infotech cos do the same thing by their installed base and standards
Infotech cos do the same thing by their installed base and standards
One thing I really like about this piece is that, even though it focuses on the telco-infotech dichotomy, I think its underlying assumptions are directly relevant to the enterprise world (besides the inherent relevance of public network carriers to our world). The author really seems to approach infotech and telecom as two aspects of the same subject: Communications.
