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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rob S. who wrote (21875)	6/6/2007 10:56:18 AM
From: ftth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

re: The inclusion into IMT-2000 has been expected but comes a bit earlier than some had suspected. This might be the outcome of earlier decisions which precluded use of IMT-2000 spectrum for alternative applications. That put barriers up for consideration of WiMAX but that now turns out to be a governance determination - to keep spectrum within the IMT-2000 designation. Now that WiMAX is part of IMT-2000 it becomes fair game for consideration. As I understand it, it's not a done deal yet. This was just an interim step, and some vote in Geneva at the end of the month is the next step. The Chinese government and a government-sanctioned technology thereof, that does not want the WiMAX competition, is the prime opposition (and still opposed). Ericsson and Qualcomm (also due to protecting self-interests) remain strongly opposed as well. Just another in a long string of worldwide battles (across many fields, not just technology) to box out new entrant threats via some formal binding process to limit the field. If the market were truly open, this process of "sanctioned pre-approval" wouldn't even be necessary. But the other side of that argument is that leaving it open and unbounded (i.e. allowing new "latecomer" choices to evaluate on top of the choices that already exist) creates delays and confusion in arriving at the "final market state," whatever that may be. All depends whether you value maximizing innovation in all directions, or whether you think it's best for some governing body to put the hammer down at some point and say, we have enough platform choices and sufficient competition therein; innovate within these. I think there are reasonable arguments that can be made for either scenario. Unfortunately it's not usually a "reasoned debate," and it's generally obvious where the interested parties will side. It's one thing to have companies advocating self-interests--you expect that. But when you have countries advocating protectionist interests (China in this case), in that same mix, it gets even more complicated. Twenty years ago, no one would have cared about pissing off the Chinese government by opposing their position. Now the future business opportunities are believed to be so great in China, even those opposing China's stand have to tread lightly so they don't get boxed out of the future. Similar to the way US tech companies avoid challenging phone company positions, for fear of being boxed out of perceived future opportunities, except on a much larger scale.