Kyocera, China and other ruminations: Although not in a position to tell exactly what Mq's deep Beijing throat knows, I do know, having just returned from working with an Australian client with rather deep relationships with a powerful quasi governmental entity, that China is bursting inside with pluralistic forces and relationships. That is to say, the official "party" line may seem monolithic, and Wu and MII may seem to be, and may actually be, promoting a rather anti-CDMA line. And that line may come to pass when all comes out in the wash. But monolithic, China is no more. You have only to look at the NYT this morning for a description of internet and web access fever gripping China. There are many forces attempting to capture a bit of that market, and China will--indeed is--disposed to see a bit of that market captured by foreign interests as long as reasonably contained. This pluralistic trend was captured marvelously in a WSJ article this Spring detailing the break-up and deregulation of MII. Belgrade bombing delayed this a bit, but the forces are still in place.
The article posted by Brian h (I think) a while ago which contained a poll of Chinese re. whether they thought that CDMA was technically superior to GSM--there were numbers who said they didn't know what CDMA was, but there were also numbers who did know and who had a sense of the advantages. This tends to support the point that Mq is making.
None of this goes to "prove" that CDMA will enter China in force, but it does go to the issue that China is much more open than appears on the surface. Deals are struck subtly, behind the scenes, letting the natural gestalt take its course. A Chinese poster on the other thread chided me for opining that maybe Kyocera was good for the China opening because of historic enmity between the two peoples (for good reason, circa 1937 and the atrocities beyond) and then made the more salient point that deals have to work for cultural, business and synergistic reasons. Rolling forces of change are in place for that to happen.
Steve |
