<The race to the gutter can't be won>
Regarding the EricyT28 vs the Nokia8210 and Stockholm retailers 13:1 liking the Nokia model.
Maybe Nokia salespeople get more money from selling Nokia than Ericsson? That would explain the situation and Ericsson cutting the price will make things worse [for Ericsson]. Maybe Ericsson needs to look at their distributor relationship rather than the phone.
Phone buyers [in general] are totally blind. Phone sellers [in general] are totally clueless. The clueless leading the blind can end up anywhere. Including the gutter.
On goal-setting in general, if we aim high, we could well miss. If we aim at the gutter, we are sure to succeed.
With Iridium, we had the mendacious, ignorant, greedy and stupid leading the gullible. Valueman thinks we have, in Globalstar, a similar situation. There are BIG mistakes being made in the investment world. The same as always I suppose. White elephants these days just cost more and are bigger than earth.
On W-CDMA, let's hear from Vodafone before we decide the rest of the world will copy the rabidly protectionist 'own standard' Japanese who are heading off down their own PHS re-run. The Japanese think they are the best bunch of DNA on the planet and like to keep it that way. Of course they have a lot of competitors for that self-awarded title, but never mind that. What they don't understand is network effect. That's because they are a little collection of heaps of people and haven't been involved in network effects much at all. They have had great success with developing a protected home market, working like hell, then selling stuff around the world to people who have destructive unions and lazy, welfare-oriented economies. They will try to repeat that feat. They will fail [well, they'll end up with a CDMA equivalent of PHS].
Korea too is eyeing that track; probably envious of Japan's great success and like African dictators with silly military hats, thinking they know how to do it like the British did. My bet is on the USA model which has developed over centuries now, of freeish competition and more or less open markets, with a little bit of leeway given by politicians. Sure, it's mucky for a long time, but it's the joy of McDonalds and Coca Cola which spreads from Vladivostock to the culinary heights of the Champs Elysee.
It's like the latest silly Japanese effort, roaming abroad. Having set up their forward and reverse links upside down and with their own wave functions, they now want to travel. Ooops, the phone won't work elsewhere. So their bright idea is to make it multimode. That costs and wastes.
DoCoMo is like dear old Rex. Monstrous and fine for the era and fearsome in tooth and claw. But scurrying in the forest is a hot little mammal! Mighty Motorola and Ericy are NOT now king of the cellphone world. Nokia is. But Nokia's beautiful new cloak is going to disappear as CDMA comes rolling across the world and the little boy will once again point, laugh and shout that the King isn't wearing any clothes. [Unless, of course, Nokia very quickly improves their CDMA efforts]. Kyocera, or Samsung will perhaps be the new alpha male.
Let's watch with fascination as market capitalisation is shed by the $billion on the battlefield and new hot-blooded operators grow like Topsy [who just growed and growed]. With what's going to happen, it would pay to be a coward! As you say, operators will NOT want to be brave and dead.
Maurice |
