Arun Sarin; Vodafone's CEO on 3G, Life and the Universe
Arun Sarin here giving a full interview to the FT on Vodafone's strategy. For those of you with a subscription here is the link. For those without, a quick cut and paste;
"But are we investing seriously? - the answer is yes. And the point is it's not just that we're investing in 3G networks which are an important piece but we're investing in 3G handsets, we're investing in 3G content, we're investing in 3G service delivery platforms because it takes much more than just some infrastructure and a handset out there . That's kind of 2G thinking. The 3G world is a little more complicated and requires a little more systems integration on our part to bring these new products and services to light."
The interviewer immediate follow up question was back to handsets, which as I have pointed out before is neither the question nor the answer to the future of wireless connectivity. How players control the service delivery platform ("SDP") is. Vodafone are a mile ahead of their competitors in this. I don't think that this is generally understood. Too many VC dollars are still being thrown at the handset end of the market and far too few in to the engine.
Which seems a little counter-intuitive. The telecom downturn has seriously hurt the incumbent telecom manufacturers from Ericsson to Lucent and Nortel and just about everyone else along the way. To make it worse their pain happened as the telco world and the IT world really started to converge. IBM will start to eat Lucent's lunch because Lucent cannot compete. To paraphase Claude Leglise from Intel Capital; whenever this firm of disruption occurs there is money to be made by start ups. And if the VC community was clever enough to spot it by VC's. However, I am not sure that this train has pulled in to the station yet. There are a few plays out there - some of which make more sense than others; Opencloud, Apertio, Appium amongst others fit that bill. Then there are a group that seem to, but to my mind miss the point - tw leading contenders amongst these are Aepona and BayPackets. Each of these companies covers a different part of the new network ecosystem. There are plenty others out there, these together with our bet, see below, are the market leaders.
Stovepipe solutions and high integration costs are no longer acceptable. Unless startups use technology to differentiate and protect themselves from resurgent TEM's they will lose business to better funded incumbents. This is not a game of incremental improvements.
Disclosure - we have a big bet in this market BET
22 December 2003
Arun Sarin; Vodafone's CEO on 3G, Life and the Universe
Arun Sarin here giving a full interview to the FT on Vodafone's strategy. For those of you with a subscription here is the link. For those without, a quick cut and paste;
"But are we investing seriously? - the answer is yes. And the point is it's not just that we're investing in 3G networks which are an important piece but we're investing in 3G handsets, we're investing in 3G content, we're investing in 3G service delivery platforms because it takes much more than just some infrastructure and a handset out there . That's kind of 2G thinking. The 3G world is a little more complicated and requires a little more systems integration on our part to bring these new products and services to light."
The interviewer immediate follow up question was back to handsets, which as I have pointed out before is neither the question nor the answer to the future of wireless connectivity. How players control the service delivery platform ("SDP") is. Vodafone are a mile ahead of their competitors in this. I don't think that this is generally understood. Too many VC dollars are still being thrown at the handset end of the market and far too few in to the engine.
Which seems a little counter-intuitive. The telecom downturn has seriously hurt the incumbent telecom manufacturers from Ericsson to Lucent and Nortel and just about everyone else along the way. To make it worse their pain happened as the telco world and the IT world really started to converge. IBM will start to eat Lucent's lunch because Lucent cannot compete. To paraphase Claude Leglise from Intel Capital; whenever this firm of disruption occurs there is money to be made by start ups. And if the VC community was clever enough to spot it by VC's. However, I am not sure that this train has pulled in to the station yet. There are a few plays out there - some of which make more sense than others; Opencloud, Apertio, Appium amongst others fit that bill. Then there are a group that seem to, but to my mind miss the point - tw leading contenders amongst these are Aepona and BayPackets. Each of these companies covers a different part of the new network ecosystem. There are plenty others out there, these together with our bet, see below, are the market leaders.
Stovepipe solutions and high integration costs are no longer acceptable. Unless startups use technology to differentiate and protect themselves from resurgent TEM's they will lose business to better funded incumbents. This is not a game of incremental improvements.
Disclosure - we have a big bet in this market BET
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