Now This Makes Perfect Sense

Telecom New Zealand has formed a joint venture with Yahoo!7 (the Australian JV that Yahoo has with media company Seven) to be called Yahoo! Xtra.

The point is that most of the wealth-creating innovation that will happen around the IP communications and IP media spaces will be created by people outside the telco orbit.

So instead of trying to do things that simply aren't in the company DNA, or buying and then destroying the DNA of innovator companies, just partner up, take minority stakes, co-develop and co-sponsor.

The cable companies figured this out a while ago. The other thing is that one doesn't have to own all of everything, or even all of some things. One simply wants to participate in the upside one's partners can provide. That's tough for control freak companies, to be sure. But it works.