Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Where is Innovation in the Telco Space?

Dave Michels asks Craig Walker, Google Entrepreneur in Residence where the innovation is now at telecom companies, either established or startups.

"Tough question," Walker says. "I think there's a lot of innovation on the mobile side with regards to the network, devices and applications."

"As for telephony services and features themselves though, most of the innovation seems to continue to come from the non-traditional providers like Google, Digium" and others.

In part, that is partly because most of the newer ways of providing voice services using fixed lines have something to do with web-based feature integration. Mobility, on the other hand, has the advantage of faster introduction and replacement of multi-function devices, more on-board processing and memory, video and multimedia features that are difficult to replicate on the wired networks.

That same sort of difference also occurs even on the fixed network. If you were trying to create something new, would you design for a PC with web browser and broadband Internet access, or a telephone? Pretty much the same sort of decision making might inform an entrepreneur's decisions about distribution channels as well.

Would you rather create an application that can be served up from any web browser, or an app that requires telco permission to offer or sell?

Also, there is the sheer matter of opportunity. As big and important a business as voice communications is, would you rather develop apps that create new businesses and markets, or take some part of what already exists?

In other words, creativity increasingly is deployed elsewhere for all sorts of good reasons.

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