Comments on: The Phone Companies Still Don’t Get It http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/21/the-phone-companies-still-dont-get-it/ Jeff Nolan's take on investment, innovation, entrepreneurship and the technology industry Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:50:28 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Anshu Sharma http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/21/the-phone-companies-still-dont-get-it/comment-page-1/#comment-12566 Anshu Sharma Sat, 22 Jul 2006 21:26:11 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/21/the-phone-companies-still-dont-get-it/#comment-12566 Innovator's dilemma- once again. It is arguably more profitable for the telco companies to keep selling over-priced landline phone services and make billions in the process till the inevitable tipping point is reached. Once Vonage, Skype and the ilk have sufficient revenues (in billions not millions), the telco's will simply buy some of them out and enter the market. And it appears that the Voip technology is not rocket science, so it may be relatively easy for them to co-opt the voip model. (See my blog posts on co-option, innovation and disruptive innovation.) Much the same as ERP vendors of today safely neglecting the SaaS providers and there mere millions in revenue. Of course, the question is will the large players in Telco, ERP be able to co-opt when the tipping point comes. And as much as we like to bet for the small guy- Siebel was the Salesforce.com of 5 years ago. And look where they landed. SFDC owned by SAP, Microsoft, Oracle or even IBM- who knows! (Personal views expressed here.) Innovator’s dilemma- once again. It is arguably more profitable for the telco companies to keep selling over-priced landline phone services and make billions in the process till the inevitable tipping point is reached. Once Vonage, Skype and the ilk have sufficient revenues (in billions not millions), the telco’s will simply buy some of them out and enter the market. And it appears that the Voip technology is not rocket science, so it may be relatively easy for them to co-opt the voip model. (See my blog posts on co-option, innovation and disruptive innovation.)

Much the same as ERP vendors of today safely neglecting the SaaS providers and there mere millions in revenue.

Of course, the question is will the large players in Telco, ERP be able to co-opt when the tipping point comes. And as much as we like to bet for the small guy- Siebel was the Salesforce.com of 5 years ago. And look where they landed. SFDC owned by SAP, Microsoft, Oracle or even IBM- who knows!

(Personal views expressed here.)

]]> By: Rajesh http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/21/the-phone-companies-still-dont-get-it/comment-page-1/#comment-12461 Rajesh Sat, 22 Jul 2006 14:44:23 +0000 http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/07/21/the-phone-companies-still-dont-get-it/#comment-12461 Whats shocking is the R&D budget quoted in the article: $130MM. I guess I won't hold my breath for the next UNIX, C, and similar break-throughs from the new AT&T! Whats shocking is the R&D budget quoted in the article: $130MM. I guess I won’t hold my breath for the next UNIX, C, and similar break-throughs from the new AT&T!

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