McGuire’s Law

This past Monday I had the pleasure of speaking at the CIO Bootcamp at Interop. It’s a great event and this was my second time to participate.  I promised the participants that I’d follow-up with a posting summarizing my talk and providing links to some of the case studies I mentioned.  And here it is!

The outline for my talk was taken from a post I wrote at Seamless Enterprise early this year including my predictions for 2009:

• VoIP is dead. Long live AoIP!
• B’bye desk phone
• IP surges ahead
• Economic challenges drive mobile productivity
• Mobile Broadband becomes standard configuration
• Outsourcing explodes
• Unified Communications make real inroads

I talked about the challenges that come from our current economic conditions. Borrowing a phrase that Bruce Barnes had introduced earlier in the morning, I challenged the group to consider how mobility can help them transition from “order takers” to “value creators.” There are two ways to create value - increase revenue (I again borrowed from Bruce in referencing Blue Ocean strategies), and increase productivity/reduce costs.

For revenue growth and really for changing the rules of competition, I referenced a number of examples including:

• Avis Roaming Rapid Returns
• TeleNav
• Montclair State University
• Portable-On-Demand Storage (PODS)
• Sand Springs Police Department

From a cost savings perspective, I talked about how IDC estimates that 2/3 of workers are already mobile some of the time. At Sprint, we’ve translated this into $20M/year in real estate savings. Further, I provided a more detailed case study of our implementation of Unified Communications which is providing an incremental $6-8M per year in telecom cost savings by eliminating hundreds of PBXs and the associated ILEC circuits.

Once again, the Bootcamp was a wonderful event and I was pleased to be a part of it.

Two months ago I participated in eComm. What a great event! (Thanks Lee!)

My talk was on “Cutting the Cord on Big Bell Dogma.” I think it’s a pretty compelling story. You can check out the video here and the slides further down in this post.

A couple of weeks ago I had a lengthy chat with Lee Dryburgh about the status of the industry, especially around innovation. You can now read it online or download the audio for your morning commute.

Here are some of the questions Lee asked. You’ll need to go to the interview to see my responses:

• On that note, you are Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Sprint. Could you describe what you do in that role?
• I would like to ask why you are speaking at the Emerging Communications Conference, this coming March?
• That leads me on to throw in a question very dear to my heart, which is; do you think telecom operators have been far too slow in terms of innovation?
• Generally, how do you feel or what is it that gives you the belief that Sprint is going to be a driver of innovation?
• I believe you are seeing opportunities in the mobile space. Is that correct, in terms of innovation and in particular, do you feel that things have changed in the mobile market the last couple of years, which will help foster innovation?
• I want to ask you about openness. What is meant by it and does it have meaning?
• What inhibitors do you see in mobile, today, that you believe will be pulled down by operators, going forwards?
• Now, you’re seeing this massive surge in Netbooks. What are most people doing with Netbooks? It’s either Google Apps or it’s the likes of Skype. Does that give a “telephone” company concern when you’re seeing more and more “near general purpose computers” hanging off the end of the network? Do you see it as an opportunity?
• I know it’s not your position to be asking this, but do you know if the backhaul from the BTS, from the antennas, how upgrading that is going?
• The final couple of questions here, can you shed any light on any Sprint plans with Android? Being part of the Open Handset Alliance, I was hoping to get some detail on what the plans are with Android.
• Finally, and it’s more of an open-ended type question, I want to know what gets you excited, looking forward? Where is the hope that you see?

A brief post about a big event - eComm 2009.

The title for this post has three meanings:

• Where can I start when describing this event?
• Where can you start when trying to get up to speed on innovation in telecom?
• Where can entrepreneurs start building momentum?

Unfortunately, I missed the inaugural version of eComm last year, but I’m looking forward to participating in this year’s version.

Describing the event is hard because it’s so big. The event website describes the conference as “the world’s leading-edge telecom, Internet communications and mobile innovation event.” But that misses the enormity of it. I count 93 sessions over three days (that’s all in one track, I believe). The speakers include powerful industry players such as Nokia, Cisco, Symbian, Skype, British Telecom, Qualcomm, Google, T-Mobile, and yes, Sprint. Some of my favorite mobility bloggers will also be there: Alan Quayle, Andreas Constantinou, Brough Turner, Dean Bubley, Lee S Dryburgh, and Martin Geddes.

If you’re wanting to get started on where innovation is happening in telecom, consider some of these session titles: “Creating New Opportunities from Android Openness”, “Mobile Phone Internet Connectivity Reinvented”, “Taking a SIP of Java - Building Voice Mashups using SIP Servlets”, “Digital Democracy or Plutocracy: Open Technology and the Future of Wireless Communications”, “Cloud Telephony - Why you need more then an API”, “Communications Enabling Business Processes to Make and Save Money”, “Where’s the money in Voice 2.0?”, “Cookie Scale Computing: Human-Computer Interfaces as Piles of Smart Little Things”, “A White Box. A Vision of Our Evolving Mobile World.”, “Voice 2.0 Applications in a Mobile Environment”, and “Voice Applications: The Wheel Has Already Been Invented.”

And where else can entrepreneurs get such a supportive start? The schedule includes twelve “launch slots” described this way: “Launch Slots are for something NEW. It can be a new startup, a product or a service. What it must not be is something incremental.” Last year eComm provided early buzz for companies such as fonolo, Ribbit, and some business inside of Google called Android.

Now that I’m sure you’re convinced that you need to start planning your attendance at eComm, you’d better hop to it - early bird registration closes this Friday.

As I mentioned earlier, I was in Boston this week for Mobile Internet World.

My keynote was titled “Mobile Freedom Now!” I started by acknowledging that Boston is a birthplace of revolution, and just as Bostonians demanded freedom centuries ago by dumping tea in the harbor, Americans are demanding a revolution in mobility.  The bulk of my talk was structured around the need for the industry to revolutionize mobility to make it more instant, more compelling, and worry-free.

Dan Meyer at RCR Wireless compared my talk with that of Anthony Lewis, Verizon’s VP of Open Development.   I’m pleased that Dan picked up both on the radical openness of Sprint’s WiMax efforts but also our incremental moves on our core 3G network: “While the carrier’s WiMAX network has received the most attention recently, McGuire also highlighted the openness Sprint Nextel provides for its CDMA network.”

Dan Butcher at Mobile Marketer provides an impressively comprehensive report on my complete talk.  Thanks to Dan, I don’t need to work very hard to try to explain what I had to say.   Dan summarized my talk with this quote: “Carriers [are] at the central point of either enabling this mobility revolution or holding it back.  There are fundamental changes that have to happen to fully unleash the power of mobility revolution.”

Meanwhile, Don Jose succinctly captured my core message: “Openness is esential[sic] for revolutionizing mobility.”

This week I was in Boston for Mobile Internet World.  Tuesday evening, I had the pleasure to sit between Rich Miner and Mark Lowenstein at a very enjoyable dinner hosted by Charles River Ventures (thanks Jon!).  Being right on the tail of the open sourcing of Android, and on the eve of the official launch of the first Android phone and the Android Market, Rich was obviously in the midst of a momentous week.

Rich recounted for me the long journey his Android vision has taken, starting when he was at Orange, when he envisioned a standard mobile platform across mobile operators to which developers could write.  At Orange, along with T-Mobile and Vodafone, he pushed the SavaJe platform as a potential solution, but that platform struggled to fight through the long path to realization.  After launching the startup company called Android, he and his co-founders considered venture funding, but realized that it would really take a company like Google, with deep enough pockets and enough patience to take the long view towards profitability, for the vision to become an impactful reality.

Congratulations Rich and team on these major milestones towards that reality!

(Here were my thoughts on the announcement of the Open Handset Alliance and Android just over a year ago.)

The archived streaming videos of the two panels I was on last week are now posted at the Mobilize site.

You can watch them here:

Signals from the Near Future: The Mobile Guru Panel

The Carrier Panel: Strategies to Keep Mobile Data Growing

—————-
Now playing: Billy Bragg - Greetings To The New Brunette (Demo)

In addition to the two articles that GigaOm published last week, I also provided a third article for GigaOm’s consideration as lead up to last week’s Mobilize event.  Here it is for your reading pleasure!

Openness is an active topic in the mobile industry. But what does “open” really mean? In a discussion with leading mobile developers, we asked what “open” meant to each of them. As you can guess, each answer was different. But my favorite was “Open means not having to ask permission.”

I’m not sure that definition fits very well with the word “open,” but it does well capture what is desired from openness. I believe the phrase “freedom” better reflects what we are all seeking as we transform the mobile industry.

Mobile customers desire the freedom to access any legal network-based content or application, anywhere and anytime. They want the freedom to make their mobile devices their own – personalized with their style, their content, and their applications. They want the freedom to install new software and new content, without restrictions, on their mobile devices. Mobile customers want the freedom to choose from a wide variety of devices and change from one device to another as the situation warrants.

But mobile freedom is not just the freedom “to” it is also the freedom “from.” Customers desire freedom from surprise bills, freedom from hard to use devices and services, freedom from the challenges of finding interesting content and applications, freedom from being bombarded with irrelevant ads, freedom from their personal information being shared with people they don’t trust, freedom from never-ending lock-in to one network.

Mobile developers also want freedom. Developers desire the freedom to innovate - leveraging the power of mobility to create new value for customers. They want freedom from having to develop for an infinite variety of devices and platforms. They want the freedom to implement the business model that fits their product and market. Mobile developers want the freedom to succeed.

If this is the freedom that is desired, is it the freedom that is being delivered by the mobile industry? If you care enough about this topic to have read this far, I doubt I need to answer that question.

So, why isn’t the industry hopping right to it and delivering mobile freedom? I believe there are two answers, one somewhat philosophical and the other quite practical.

I believe all industries suffer from a similar problem. Since I’ve “grown up” in telecom, I call it “ Big Bell Dogma.” In short, Big Bell Dogma is resistance to change. In large part it is driven by the market power held by incumbents and their fear that change will reduce that power. Each of us, individually, suffers from Big Bell Dogma. We resist change because it brings uncertainty over whether we can continue to be successful. But the greater the power held, the greater the resistance to change. A monopoly mindset is what gives Big Bell Dogma its name.

On a more practical level, the reality is that the mobile industry has an existing, profitable business model that generally delivers the kind of financial results Wall Street expects.

I believe that mobile freedom will drive significant market growth – just as freedom drove tremendous growth in the PC market (with the IBM/Microsoft/Intel standard platform) and in the Internet market (when the web delivered new freedom to end users and developers). I believe that mobile operators who embrace freedom can participate in that market growth and can actually deliver better financial performance (faster growth, better margins) than the current model.

The challenge is in the transition. In a freedom-enabled mobile market, the revenues change. The sources of revenue change and the nature of revenues change. In a freedom-driven business model, the costs change as well. Unfortunately, synchronizing the revenue and cost changes is challenging.

To successfully manage through this transition takes a long series of small steps, each with manageable risk. Sprint’s introduction of the Simply Everything price plan to deliver freedom from surprise bills was a manageable risk. Our introduction of the Titan platform to deliver freedom for developers from fragmented device development was a manageable risk. The list goes on.

Over time, a series of steps can get us to mobile freedom. But wouldn’t it be nice to not have to worry about a transition?

Sprint was blessed with that opportunity in the launch of our WiMax business – Xohm, soon to be part of the new Clearwire. The Xohm business model was built from the ground up to deliver mobile freedom to customers and to third party developers.

It has been very exciting to watch the birthing of a new industry model, and it will be fascinating to watch as mobile freedom grows and matures!

Last week while I was traveling, the GigaOm team posted my second article “Mobility - What’s Different.”

The article starts by asking “Is mobility a new revolution, or is it just an extension of the previous PC and Internet revolutions? Is anything really different?”  It then uses the Kindle, Dash Express, DriveCam, and CardioNet to help answer the question.

Check it out!

—————-
Now playing: Matthew Perryman Jones - Beneath The Silver Moon

I’m scheduled to speak at Mobilize.  Originally the event was structured as a mix of talks and panels and Surj had picked for me a topic along the lines of the title of this post.  Recently, the event has been restructured to be almost entirely panels, so you can expect to see me in a couple of very interesting conversations on the 18th.

But… I’d started collecting my thoughts for what a talk on 2008 vs. 1998 might look like, and instead of throwing it all away, I thought I’d share some of those thoughts here…

If you go back and take a look at what was happening in 1998, you’ll find that there were some pretty interesting IPOs that year.  Of the class of 1998, eBay probably stands out as a prominent survivor, but other initial offerings that year include Broadcast.com, GeoCities, and Inktomi.  Not bad companies, but clearly from a different era than today - what we could probably categorize as “Web 1.0 companies.”

But, the really exciting thing that was happening in 1998 wasn’t inside the browser, it was inside the walls of our homes. 

In December 1997, Covad launched DSL in San Francisco.  By the end of 1998, they were also operating in Los Angeles, Boston, and New York.  Northpoint launched in the Bay area in March 1998.  By the end of the year, in addition to Covad’s 4 cities, they were also in Chicago, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.  Rhythms NetConnections got started a month after Northpoint in San Diego, but they moved fast, operating in 11 markets by year end.

The cable companies were already out there - @Home was operating in 59 markets by the end of 1998 with a whopping 331,000 subscribers.

Where were the telcos?  Still trying to convince everyone that ISDN was what they needed for broadband.  In fact, @Home’s 1998 annual report included this risk: “The regional Bell operating companies (’RBOCs’) and other local exchange carriers have also entered this field and are providing price competitive services. Many of these competitors are offering (or may soon offer) technologies that will compete with some or all of the Company’s high-speed data service offerings. Such technologies include Integrated Services Digital Network (’ISDN’) and Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (’ADSL’).”

Wow.  Doesn’t that sound like ancient history?

And yet, today it sounds like ancient history because @Home, Covad, Northpoint, and Rhythms Netconnections succeeded in revolutionizing the Internet by introducing always-on broadband connections with non-scary pricing and non-scary implementation.  (They may not have succeeded on other dimensions, but that’s another story.)

Could any of the following be possible today without easy-for-everyone always-on broadband?

• YouTube
• Google Maps
• Flickr
• Second Life
• World of Warcraft
• Facebook/MySpace/Orkut/Cyworld etc.
• Twitter
• the list could go on…

The point is that 1998 was a critical turning point for how we interact with our world through the Internet because of the investments being made in key enablers.

And, I believe that 2008 is the same type of critical turning point for how we interact with our world through mobile devices.

There are already some really cool mobile capabilities out there, but I think of them as the equivalent of narrowband applications:

• RIM Blackberry
• Telenav
• Xora
• Loopt
• Pocket Express
• SMS for that matter…

The applications that are possible are constrained by some combination of bandwidth, usability, coverage, pricing, or policies.  And the exciting thing is that, in 2008, these barriers are starting to come down.

Being very provincial for the moment, consider the revolutionary changes introduced just by my own employer, Sprint, in 2008:

• Simply Everything pricing
• The Instinct - intuitive user interface
• Airave - solving indoor coverage challenges
• Xohm + Clearwire - beginning to launch nationwide multi-megabit mobile broadband
• Titan java platform

As standalone events, these changes are up and down the “excitement scale”, but taken as a whole, they represent change as revolutionary as the broadband Internet revolution. Mobility promises to unleash innovation that leverages the unique personal, context-aware, always-with-you nature of mobility to create compelling value well beyond the Internet as we know it today. 

Where will these advances take us?  No one really knows, but I believe that, while today we see mobility as a poor (limited in bandwidth and form factor) extension of our desktop, in the not so distant future we will see our desktops as a poor (limited contextual relevance) extension of our mobile experience.

What do you see coming?