Mike,
<< I agree with you that we don't have a clear understanding of Christensen's definitions of "open" and "closed" standards; we really don't know (or at least I don't know) how he is using those terms. >>
I thought he spelled it out his usage of proprietary "closed" nice and concisely. His proprietary "closed" appears to be lifted just about wholesale from the same source that Moore lifted proprietary "open" - "Computer Wars".
NTT Docomo has mostly closely followed the "proprietary integrated" approach at this early stage in the development of the wireless internet market. For example, DoCoMo developed i-mode technology (which is based on cHTML), cultivated revenue share agreements through close relationships with content vendors, and established the i-mode brand, which appears to be a more integrated approach than most wireless carriers.
In other words, they didn't develop a standard, did not develop to a standard, and did not wait around for a standard to be developed - whether de facto or de jure - they just did it, did it in an integrated fashion, and in doing so, proved to the world, the viability of wireless data, taking a page out of the mainframers original approach.
In the process, they also proved that the underlying technology was not the fundamental determinant of the success of wireless data.
His key point seems to be:
•3G appears to be a classic example of an established industry attempting to cram a new technology into an existing business model.
Dr. William Lee talked to this in one of the early CDG Digevents when he talked about 3G3 being a vendor push rather than a carrier pull, with the implication that little attention was being focused on the integrated business model.
- Eric - |
