Hello Jack, those are all excellent questions. From what I've been able to find, any uniqueness amounts to proprietary twists that can be had in other ways by other players. I don't see any protectable technical advantage that makes them stand out ahead of the pack.
Essentially, the ONLY reason they are big news is the Gilder hype. No other reason whatsoever.
Lucent, however, provides them with the *possibility* of a key marketing advantage that the smaller players don't have the potential, experience, or budget for (at least not yet anyway). When there's no clear technical advantage (and if there were you'd think that one of the dozens of press releases or articles could have put that advantage into proper perspective), the marketing is what matters. (Arguably, marketing is what matters even if there is a technical advantage).
So their advantage--if any--may well be Lucent's size and reach more than anything. If they gain a bit of momentum the smaller players will have a tough time making inroads in the market ("...anyone knows an ant....can't...move a rubber tree plant"<gg>).
As for the real size of the market, all the projections are rosey generalizations (i.e. every business on earth that uses networks) and should be ignored until someone defines the proper subset that accounts for the limitations and for the fact that a good many already have service.
Not many businesses on earth will opt for blindly sending their life blood through arteries owned by a provider with unknown and unproven abilities to deliver reliable service. Forget about any technological claims--the *service* is what's important. Lucent gives them far greater *potential* to succeed as a business, but it's still all just words at this juncture.
Highly unlikely they could have gotten any real market-driven (customer market, not stock market) traction just from gilder hype.
Now there's always the "capture your customer's with stock options" route, which seems to be an acceptable practice these days. When we throw variables like that into the equation, anything can materialize, unfortunately. |
