You remember Tom Wolfe's 1968 classic...
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."
Well...apparently so does Arun Sarin.
lanroamer.net
Excerpts from the above article:
Stanford Symposium Stirs Debate
By Peggy Albright
May 21, 2001
Wireless Week
How might this affect the wireless industry? For one, 3G will move more slowly than the wired Internet did and less rapidly than the industry wants, largely because of the lack of end-to-end IP connectivity, predicts wireless veteran Arun Sarin. "It will come," he promises. "The question is when."
Sarin, former president and COO of AirTouch Communications, former CEO of InfoSpace Inc. and a member of the board of directors at Vodafone, Charles Schwab and Cisco Systems, admits that, like everyone else, he was completely buffaloed by the wireless Internet phenomenon last year. In fact, the whole business case driving Vodafone's hostile takeover of Mannesmann last year was based on the promise of the wireless Internet, he says.
"I frankly just drank that Kool-Aid" like everyone else, Sarin admits. Like many others, he has learned to proceed more cautiously. Sarin advised conference attendees to pick their battles carefully and try to move forward smartly.
He says innovation will occur much slower than it did with the Internet because of inherent roadblocks in the wireless industry. For example, increasing concentration of the industry in the hands of a few huge players worldwide will limit the free flow of ideas and technology development. The plethora of competing wireless data standards and approaches to wireless browser design will cause other delays.
Additionally, Sarin believes the proliferation of devices and competing operating platforms will prevent developers from creating the economies of scale needed to drive innovation. He sees no killer application yet. Finally, he says, the capital markets are now too averse to wireless Internet risk and will not soon return to last year's funding levels.
For those seeking advice on how to proceed in this business environment, Sarin offers these suggestions: Build your business around incremental advancements. Build functionality on top of existing networks to speed adoption, as the Research In Motion BlackBerry does. Don't try to replace existing revenue streams and don't try to replace SMS. Companies thinking that 3G will expand the SMS gold mine will cannibalize that revenue stream.
Also, focus on applications, new platforms or standards, and assume walled gardens are here to stay, then structure your business model around carrier economics and on the carriers' terms. "Voice, at the end of the day, will be the business case and killer application for 3G," Sarin predicts. |
