Where Is Wireless Innovation Occurring If Not At The Carrier?
The decision by France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) to close one of its research labs just outside of Boston has led me to wonder: who are the big innovators in wireless today?
It doesn’t seem to be the carrier.
While this can’t be considered a blanket statement for carriers across the globe, most of the buzz being generated today is not from some lab of scientists employed by the operator. Rather, the ones being recognized are the Silicon Valley types, like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG), and even handset makers, such as Taiwan-based HTC and even BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion.
The Boston Globe reports that the lab, which employs 52 people, will shutdown Oct. 30. The carrier will also continue to have labs in Silicon Valley, France and Japan, so we can’t really claim that France Telecom is deciding to stop innovating at all. That’s not the case for them, or most other carriers.
But you do have to wonder what these labs are doing? It was Apple that blew off the doors to the walled garden, and it’s Google that’s building a platform that will open up the internet to mobile users, and its entrepreneurs all over the world that are building apps and developing new services. HTC is building unique UIs and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) offers email to developing countries. It’s only every once in awhile, a carrier offers something really daring. For instance, AT&T (NYSE: T) reportedly did contribute to Apple’s visual voicemail service, and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) along with China Mobile, Softbank and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) are participating in what
Um, hello Tricia? How long have you been covering wireless? The carriers have never done anything innovative. They simply deploy the innovations of others. These so-called "labs" are just testing new deployments of innovators' products. How does this surprise you?
Um, hi Adam. Perhaps, I've been covering wireless waaay too long. But I offer this: Maybe it's more noticeable now because there's others innovating so quickly in the space, and that's somewhat new.
I suppose you first have to answer a threshold question of "What is "innovative?" Some new process or machine that is useful to the carrier, manfacturer or customer.
Once it is determined that something is innovative, the question then becomes "How innovative is it?" (degree). For example, if you are a manufacturer the question may be framed in the context of "Will it save in manufacturing costs? Improve an existing function?. For a carrier the question may be "Will the innovation capture market share?"
Both in-house labs and the individual entrepeneur are necessary for the advancement of new and useful process, phones, etc. In house labs have resources and talent to tackle projects that an individual entrepeneur may not be able to pursue, or put a fine point on an entrepeneur's idea. Likewise, entrepeneurs may come up with solutions to problems not yet considered by working in the white space.
Of course, if the in house lab produces nothing useful to the company, or that can be profitably licensed by the company to others, it would be in the shareholder's interest to shutter it.
The USPTO might be a good place to gather information on who is being innovative. IBM appears to have had the most patents granted last year.
I was granted a US patent 7,463,898 on a mobile phone that presents advertising to persons standing near the mobile phone user, when the user speaks in a non-handsfree mode. Additionally, the patent includes a "proximity marketing" method.
Am I innovative? Maybe. The market will decide.
I posted a comment on innovation by Orange here: http://blogs.forrester.com/consumer_product_strategy/2009/04/innovation-by-orange.html
Orange still has many other labs all over the world (21 now I think…) but it is true Apple or Google appear to be more agile or reactive…