Friday, July 15, 2005|
OPINION://WAM, bam - thank you, Ma'am!. This essay is rather unlike anything I’ve written before on this site. Don’t worry, it’s very much about the separation of service from connectivity, and its effect on the telco industry.
But this time, it’s personal.
This is the story of Sprint’s pioneering, and failed, effort to become the first telco to turn itself into an open application and business platform.
The story starts in 1999 in Dublin, Ireland during a warm and pleasant summer. [Telepocalypse]11:29:59 PM  comment
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Balkan Broadcasting Corporation. The BBC is currently experimenting with multicast video distribution. To do this, they’ve made agreements with a select number of ISPs who peer at London’s Telehouse mega-exchange in Docklands.
If the Internet is not a thing, but a network of peering agreements then we’re seeing something interesting here. On what terms will ISPs get to peer/interconnect for multicast traffic? In effect we’re seeing a parallel internet emerge, dedicated to a particular traffic type.
Rather than trying to collar exclusive content agreements, perhaps ISPs now need to get competing on who they can get multicast peering Will we see a “top-down” approach with only a few large media sources of data allowed? Will anyone be able to access any mediamegacorp content, or will it be fragmented, with different users only seeing subsets of what’s out there? The BBC suggest the latter:
Or will be see a more “end-to-end” flat-world outcome where anyone can multicast to anyone else?
Definitely one to watch — the economics, not the TV. [Telepocalypse]11:29:36 PM comment
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Livedoor to Apply for Mobile Licence. Reuters, 15 July 2005 Internet firm Livedoor Co. said today it plans to apply for a new mobile licence that the Japanese government is expected to issue later this year, with the aim of starting a data service. Livedoor will apply for the licence on the 2 gigahertz band, a company spokesman said. It will be competing against mobile broadband startup IP Mobile Inc. and Willcom Inc., a wireless service operator owned by Kyocera Corp. and U.S. fund Carlyle Group. [Wireless Watch Japan] 11:29:15 PM comment
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PC World: Fujitsu Shows Flexible LCD. The cholesteric LCD panel, which is the name given to the technology that allows the image to be maintained on-screen, measures 3.8 inches across the diagonal and was on show Thursday at the company's Fujitsu Forum 2005 event in Tokyo. [Tomalak's Realm] 11:29:01 PM comment
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Sanjay Behl New Head Of Marketing At Reliance Infocomm. Exchange4Media.com: Sanjay Behl of Nokia India will be the new head of marketing at Reliance Infocomm, where he will also be responsible for corporate branding. He is slated to assume his new role in mid-August 2005. He will work directly with Anil Ambani. Behl was in a similar position (marketing head) at Nokia. Confirming the development, Behl said, âo[ogonek]It is a much bigger and challenging opportunity with huge growth prospects. I have always been excited by the wireless opportunity in this country and Reliance Infocomm has a very strong resource and infrastructure in India.âo? Behl further mentioned that he has been given the responsibility of not just Infocomm marketing and branding but also corporate branding of the entire enterprise. He will work directly with Anil Ambani to shape the brand, itâo[dot accent]s positioning and build its corporate identity. [ContentSutra] 11:28:36 PM comment
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Airtel To Launch Wireless Data Card, Brussels-based Option To Supply Them. The Financial Express: Wireless data card maker Option said it will supply its GlobeTrotter EDGE data cards to Airtel, India's biggest mobile phone operator, sending the Belgian company's shares to a record high. "India is rapidly becoming the world's fourth-largest economy and is already one of the world markets with the highest prospect for growth. It was clear to us that this was a business opportunity that could not be overlooked," Option Chief Executive Officer Jan Callewaert said in a statement on Monday. Plugged into the side of a laptop, Option's data cards enable users to access the Internet at high speeds without a phone connection on standards such as EDGE, GPRS, WLAN and WiFi. CDMA operator Reliance Infocomm has already launched this service in India - using Sierra wireless AirCard. [ContentSutra] 11:28:16 PM comment
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Can Anil Ambani Steer Infocomm?. Rediff.com:  Anil Ambani took over as the chairman of Reliance Infocomm after a recent settlement with his brother Mukesh. Now the question is whether Anil, who do not have much of experience in running a telco (though he previously flirted with Reliance Telecom, a GSM player), can steer the company in right direction. He has made a lot of top level appointments ever since he took over.
Business Standard's The Strategist has carried an agenda for Anil, which discusses the trouble areas and possible ways out. [ContentSutra] 11:27:55 PM comment
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Future Of TV Set To Change In India. Business Standard: An article on who stands where on IPTV, video on demand, mobile TV etc. For instance, BSNL, Reliance Infocomm, and Bharti Tele-Ventures are working on pilot projects and a limited rollout is expected in October 2005. As for PC TV, HCL Infosystems, HP and LG have already launched the products in the Indian market. Zee Group plans to begin trial runs of mobile TV by end of the year. Says Star India's senior vice president Viren Popli, âo[ogonek]The idiot box is set to acquire intelligence and memory. Soon you will be able to download your favourite TV shows and virtually assemble your own channel. That is the future of TV âo[per thou] narrowcasting, right down to the individual.âo? Says R Mani Kandan, product group head for IT products at LG: âo[ogonek]We are targeting households looking for a second TV. The PCTV offers more value.âo? Kandan says that over 10 per cent of the total TV households (approximately 90 million) will go in for a second set, so there is a large market. [ContentSutra] 11:27:00 PM comment
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MTV India To Go Digital And Interactive. Business Standard:  MTV India, the music channel is all set to graduate to the next level of viewership with real time interactivity. It has launched four new blocks of interactive programming that will allow viewers across the country to use their mobile phones to interact with the channel as the shows are being relayed. Laurent Verrier, vice president, Digital Media, MTV Networks Asia in a video conference said: âo[ogonek]This will widen the MTV brand and also help us to get into newer formats and be a player in the digital market as well.âo?
India is one of the few markets where MTV has introduced the digital services apart from Korea and Japan.
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Siti Plans Digital Rollout, Public Float. Indiantelevision.com:  Siti Cable, the cable services operator from Zee group, is looking to migrate to a digital set-up, says Jawahar Goel, its head of operations. Digitization offers scope for various valued added services such as Video on Demand, EPG, pay per view etc.
In phase one of digitization, which is expected to be in place by end 2005-early 2006, cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Varanasi, Kanpur, Haryana and Mumbai are likely to boast of digital networks of Siti Cable, paving the way for improving the quality of service and making some additional value additions too. It was in 2004 that MSOs like Siti Cable, Hathway and InCablenet began to aggressively market STB-enabled digital services, firming up plans to invest in programmes for pay per view services and secure more agreements with niche channels. Additionally, MSOs intend to develop new revenue streams from broadband Internet services and VOIP telephony. "Digitisation is the mantra. In an analog mode, which is what our services are presently on, channel offerings and other services would not grow beyond a point and the lack of this growth would also hamper the overall growth of the cable industry," Goel points out. But the company does not have plans to offer broadband in a big way. "We do offer broadband and Net services in Bangalore (subscriber base: 6,700) through our own gateway, but I don't see that happening in other cities very soon," Goel adds. [ContentSutra] 11:25:35 PM comment
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"We Are Interested In Radio, Print, Production Facilities & Digital Media". Indiantelevision.com:  An interview with Frank Brown, President of MTV Networks Asia Pacific. He was in India recently; one of the aims of his visit was to find a successor to Alex Kuruvilla, who quit MTV Networks India as CEO.
A sample question: As far as acquisition goes, what are the areas you are looking at? We are interested in radio, print, production facilities and digital media - anything that would have a strategic fit with our vision. We are also interested in the local language TV channels, both for MTV as well as for Nick. We plan to have at least 2-3 acquisitions over the next three years. We are even open to joint ventures and not necessarily total buyouts. Another one: Are you eyeing exploitation of content on mobile devices? The next phase of our development is to launch digital new media business. The boom has already happened in Japan and Korea. It is happening right now in China and next up will be India for the digital boom of mobile content. We are probably in a better position than other companies to benefit from that boom as we have two brands in MTV and Nick that are targeted directly at the young consumers.
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Sun, NTT DoCoMo plan new cellular Java platform. (InfoWorld) - NTT DoCoMo and Sun Microsystems have begun work on a new Java platform for cellular handsets. The work, which began last year but was first revealed two weeks ago at Sun's JavaOne conference in San Francisco, is aimed at refreshing the mobile Java platform for today's more advanced handsets and applications. It could also be promoted as a cross-industry standard, the companies said in interviews. ] [InfoWorld: Top News]11:24:53 PM comment
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Good governance How much freedom should business-unit managers have in deciding which information systems to buy? It goes against my anti-bureaucratic grain, but I'm afraid my answer to that question is: Not much. The benefits of consolidating and standardizing a company's IT assets have grown so great - and the penalties of incompatible systems so onerous - that most companies should be moving toward a centralized governance structure if they don't already have one.
Nevertheless, the central vs. decentral question is always a tough one to wrestle with. A good overview of the relative merits of different governance models is provided by Peter Weill, director of MIT's Center for Information Systems Research, in this brief research paper. It reports on the results of a study of 300 companies, which found that the IT governance structures of top-performing firms vary widely depending on their corporate goals. Companies focused on profits exhibited greater centralization, those focused on innovation and sales growth were more decentralized, and those seeking to maximize asset utilization had hybrid models. The findings are summed up in the following chart from the report:
The choice of a governance structure has, as the chart implies, always entailed painful tradeoffs. You couldn't minimize costs, maximize asset utilization and spur innovation all at the same time. But I think those tradeoffs are becoming less severe. As IT infrastructure becomes more flexible, business units will increasingly be able to cede control over IT assets without sacrificing their freedom in applying those assets to their particular business challenges and processes. Standardization no longer means a loss of flexibility. - nick (nick@roughtype.com) [Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog]11:23:42 PM comment
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Last update: 8/4/05; 1:40:21 AM .
