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How Much is Riding on Wi-Fi?
nexex writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's John Cook explores the current flood of money on wireless networking startups and if they could be heading towards another dotcom bubble. Interesting tidbits include, ;More than 60 Wi-Fi start-ups have raised more than $650 million in the past two years, according to VentureWire. Last quarter, there was more money invested into wireless technologies than networking and enterprise software.'" The article's got some good commentary on grassroots-founded tech trends vs. investment-backed tech trends, and tries to explain why wi-fi has caught on so well.
I work for one of these startups (we work on technology that enhances the co-existence of IEEE 802.11b and Bluetooth) and we were basically privately funded. First by the founders themselves and then by some of their close contacts.
The tech bubble affected these wireless companies too. Most VC firms were not interested (or didn't have the money to invest in) wireless technology firms. Certainly the big money for growth was NOT there, and dealing with these constraints was necessary. This company did try for financing from a number of sources and was unable to obtain any VC funding of any sort.
Wireless is here to stay because I think most of these wireless technology companies that have been built during the "bust" and have had to learn to be profitable and have low burn rates in order to survive. This has allowed better structured companies to exist.
Another one of the companies that I consult for is totally privately funded from a profitable operating company. This has created a situation that is sustainable for the long term without external financing. There is no "bubble" here. Wireless technology companies are here to stay.
These are the good old days you'll be telling your children about. Make them worthwhile.
... not for home or office wireless. It's just too easy now to buy a nice, cheap little setup to free your laptop from a desk.
...it'll only be to the extent for those startup's that didn't have a good revenue model figured out in the first place.
You think Starbucks is putting in wireless from the goodness of their heart? Bzzz...wrong answer... they'll sell more coffee...probably a LOT more.
If this blows up, it's not going to be to the extent of the fantasy dot-com boom that started with Netscape and finally died out in early 2000, and is responsible for this economy....
"and tries to explain why wi-fi has caught on so well"...
How about: the same reason why the GUI, the mouse, the floppy drive, USB and heaven knows how many other standards have caught on so well in the PC markets:
Apple.
They pushed it. Note: I'm not saying they developed it; but there's a big difference between some geek sitting in his basement with a really cool tech, and getting the entire world to use it. Apple is the link between the two in this case.
yep, I'm gonna get marked as a troll or overrated for this, but I got karma to burn.
-- james
that there is a wireless bubble right now.
Wireless is sexy and sci-fi. But it's also getting pushed hard right now, when it can't deliver the quality of wireless networking that people in the general public have in their heads. You guys better get caught up fast, or there's going to be some dissilusionment and a wireless bust and a few companies are going to have to die.
This is old news.. i've been watching wireless for a while, and the business model sucks ass till you invest billions to control whole population areas, so people could effectively use the wireless anywhere in their area, so your broadband becomes your wirless connection.. One ISP provider gives it all to you.
There has already been a company that went under trying to do wifi setups, look at metrocom or what ever that pole top wireless was out in Cali.. they went under, as with the company that was to provide the wireless to Starbucks, they were stupid though, trying to put a T1 to every location to feed these AP's, when you could use a 3mb dsl for 1/10th the cost. That company already went under and was taken over by someone else with the same idea.
Someone related wireless to be similar to fax machines.. It was either Fedex or UPS that spent millions outfitting locations with faxes, so that anyone could send a document around the world same day.. they didn't realize that the fax network was going to build it's self, people would buy low cost fax machines and send their documents themselves for pennies instead of spending dollars at the delivery company. Wifi is sort of like this.. unless they up the power for providers or something the range sucks ass, you would need cells of wifi that cover area like phone signals..which doesn't seem to happen. You think that cell phone coverage sucks.. imagine needing a wifi tower like ever 300 ft.. not going to happen.