To: Mike Buckley who wrote (17522 ) 2/8/2000 7:21:00 PM From: garyx Respond to
For the gent or lady doing ARMHY for PH, this might be of some use, it is taken from the McKinsey Report and offers up ARMHY as following a gorilla strategy and doing it well:The highest rewards go to those companies that use a foundation technology to control a focal point, but this is also the hardest strategy to implement. The owner of the foundation technology must weave a web of third parties?hardware manufacturers, distributors, systems integrators, and other software developers?that embed the focal-point software in their own products and services, thereby reinforcing its importance to the industry. In semiconductors, ARM, a UK design company whose goal is to promote a global standard for low cost RISC (reduced instruction set computer) chips used in a wide range of consumer devices, allows semiconductor manufacturers to embed the ARM architecture in their own products, such as mobile phones and personal organizers. By establishing early control over a focal point and going on to build other businesses in areas adjacent to it, a single company can shape the whole industry's direction while capturing a large part of the economic benefits it creates. Microsoft, for example, has benefited not just from licensing the Windows operating system but also from increased sales of the proprietary Microsoft Office applications that run under it. To succeed with this approach, a company has to move like lightning to lock up the focal point, even if this means abandoning profits in the short term. Such a company must also enter into formal alliances and nurture its commercial web by offering its partners development tools and training, by sponsoring conferences, and by launching campaigns to communicate the benefits of its focal point.
