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Bad MEN Of Wireless

Posted by Hemos on from the oh-you-bad-bad-man dept.

justbeatit wrote to us with an article from Red Herring about the bad MEN of Wireless. MEN, of course, means Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia.

7 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Forget the MEN... by Cutriss · · Score: 5, Funny

    MEN, of course, means Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia.

    Who cares? I wanna see the WOMEN of Wireless!

    --
    "Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
  2. WAP anyone ? by MosesJones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not invented by the big three, hyped and failed.

    Part of the issue here is that there are a few basic tennets for the wireless industry

    1) Open Standards, strange to say but the folks at these three are actively pushing such standards

    2) Security and reliability, the operators have to support the hardware so they won't buy that which isn't reliable as it costs them more.

    3) Investment, these three have invested huge amounts of cash already, and don't want to see Mr Johnny come lately investing 3c and getting a totally different level of ROI.

    4) Fear. Of Microsoft, Of diminising returns, Of competition. This is a tough marketplace and they would prefer to be the last man standing, and so anyone new isn't being blocked out by a cartel, but blocked out by 3 companies who see newcommers as potential allies of their competitors.

    For someone to complain that they are blocked out of the "wireless messaging" meetings when they don't manufacture handsets is a bit rich. This is like me complaining that I get cut out of UN Security Council meetings just because I'm not a country and don't have an army.

    Big business is often bad, but these aer three companies that act against each other to drive down prices and drive up inovation. Small fry on the side who bitch that $1,000 doesn't buy them the same seat at the table as $1,000,000,000 are just as clueless as the .com "millionaires" who bitched that suppliers wouldn't give them as good a deal as they gave Sears.

    Welcome to capitalism, if you don't like it... become an accountant.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  3. They know not what they do by gosand · · Score: 5, Informative
    I worked at the M in MEN for about 5 years, in the cellular division. Believe me, they don't really know what they are doing. It may sound logical to say they know that they are stifling competition, but nobody there could wipe their butt unless there was an SOP document showing them how. It was a huge, iceberg of a company, where it took months to get anything done. We had an intern who was there for 4 months, and he never got his UNIX account created. We had to submit the proper paperwork to someone, and they had to interoffice mail it to someone else, who then gave it to the manager of the sysadmin, etc etc etc. It was excruciating. We submitted the papwork the day after he started. We called, emailed, you name it for 4 months. No account was ever created, it was always "in process".

    So as a company they may be part of a group (MEN) that collectively keeps their own interests to heart, but there is no grand conspiracy as far as I could tell. Unless it is between the VPs or CEOs, or other people who make those important decisions. I was just a grunt that got sick of working for a lumbering giant with a cult-like company culture.

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    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  4. I get it... by Gorimek · · Score: 4, Funny

    MEN are the NME.

  5. Ericsson by little1973 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am working for Ericsson and IMHO, Ericsson is not a bad company. And I think it does not have a market dominance which it had a few years ago. Its shares are standing quite low at the moment and from the inside its future is not so bright.

    IMO, Ericsson troubles can be traced back to one problem which name is AXE. AXE is a telephone exchange and the most successful product of Ericsson. All over the world you can find AXEs in exchanges. The problem is that everyone already bought an AXE, so there is almost no market to sell more. Another reason is that AXE is quite old. It was developed in the '70s and it starts showing its age. There were projects to create a new type of AXE, but they failed.

    This is the reason why Ericsson partnered with Juniper. The future is IP telephony and Ericsson needs a partner to develop its next flagship product.

    As for the article, it claims that MEN are holding back wireless technology. I think this is not true. From the inside it seems the carriers do not have the money to buy the state-of-the-art 3G and UMTS equipment because they threw away their money at the UMTS tenders. Ericsson hopes in 2003 the carriers will overcome their predicament and start buying. Otherwise, lay offs will continue...

    Everything I wrote in this comment is my personal opinion only and NOT an official statement from Ericsson.

    --
    Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
  6. Bad men of wireless by kirkb · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is it just me, or does "bad men of wireless" sound like one of those "beefcake" calendars, possibly featuring shirtless RF engineers in provocative poses [shudder...]

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    Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
  7. Red Herring Indeed by mellifluous · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I think the facts here are much simpler - the economy is down, and all of these companies are suffering. Even Nokia's stock is a small fraction of its peak despite consistent profitability. They aren't deploying new technologies as fast as some would like because these things all cost money (surprise!). Believe me, Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson, would all love to deploy new technologies because it would drive equipment renewal. In fact, all of these companies have been moving towards licensing more of their technology, so that others can develop upon it.

    The article has it backwards: These three all rely on product renewal for growth.