On Walled Gardens
Friday, July 21, 2006
Business Week tries to examine the reasons behind the pranoid reactions to innovation in the Telco world. The Telcos are gorillas and everybody is ready to dance for them. The have a regular stream of income and have grown big and fat sitting on them. The spectre of losing this income stream is a very dangerous for them. The reaction; shutting out innovation. They say in marketing circles, technology is only the enabler. But in the Telco. world its more like a threat.The downside of this is obviously they are stuck in a gut. They do not really know how to come out of it and provide better serivces to their customers. The internet and wireless technologies on the other hand have taken a great strides. Internet base VoIP companies started the trend of free voice calls and now the cable companies have adopted it. The triple play offering of Voice, Video and Data enables them to directly compete with the Telcos. With Wireless technologies moving towards incorporating mobility, the mobile advantage is also under threat.
A classic example of the Walled Garden approach and how it creates its own set of problems.
Update: A nice examination on the causes by Ars Technica.
Technorati Tags: Business, Telco, Telecoms, Innovation, Cable Companies, VoIP, Triple Play
