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To: slacker711 who wrote (54010)	5/8/2003 2:00:47 PM
From: Mike Buckley	Respond to of 54805

Good points, Slacker. I'm curious what statistics you would like to see to say that BREW (or PCS Vision) has entered the bowling alley? Initially at least, I won't be focusing on statistics. Instead, I'll be looking for a whole product that customers are buying. Once we've got that, I'll look for the statistics for further confirmation of a bowling alley. I believe the whole-product criterion has already been met and your take on the potential bowling pins supports my thinking. I'm sure that's true for BREW though as far as the rest of the product category is concerned, I'm less certain. Qualcomm would have me believe that the combination of BREW and apps is the only whole product available; Qualcomm tells us that BREW provides the only end-to-end solution. (Eric and others, is Qualcomm right about that?) However, the criterion that customers are buying BREW has not yet been met. Qualcomm is not yet taking its slice of the BREW revenue pie; in that sense, Qualcomm is giving the product to developers and operators. The criterion that must be met before I'll agree that adoption of BREW has entered the bowling alley is that it is taking its full share of the revenue. My thinking about that is rooted in Moore's writing that once a product category is inside the bowling alley, the "customers expect to buy the market-leading product," and that the buyers are "saddled with a broken, mission-critical process." (Use of italics for emphasis are Moore's.) If Qualcomm can't yet justify taking its slice of the revenue pie, apparently the buyers aren't in enough pain to justify paying for the product. Thus, the product has not entered the bowling alley. You did a great job of defining the likely bowling pins. However, we need to remember that bowling-alley strategy involving a vertical approach to market niches doesn't work well with consumer goods. Because the combination of BREW and apps will be purchased not just by companies but also by retail consumers, this applies to BREW. Having said that, the distribution structure of BREW and its competitors also does not neatly fit the scenario Moore describes that applies to computer-based consumer goods. It fits to a point and it appears that Qualcomm has the right strategy. (Whether or not the company is using the right tactics to implement the strategy is a different subject.) If Qualcomm doesn't eventually begin marketing directly to the consumer once BREW is firmly in the bowling alley, it will be using the wrong strategy. Personally, I'd bet that Qualcomm won't ever market directly to the consumers and I hope I'm wrong. --Mike Buckley