Just published: "Open Innovation" by Hank Chesbrough, $24.50 on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578518377/ . It describes what PARC was looking for in its research, the many spin-offs that we've heard of, and proposes a post-PARC theory for tech R&D funding / thinking with research from Intel, IBM, Lucent and others. I've posted a full review at http://www.mironov.com/pb/mar03.html. Strongly recommended!
Paid-for WiFi hotspots are much too early in the market adoption curve to pay for themselves. We're missing two of the critical inputs: [1] masses of users willing to locate and pay for hotspots, and [2] a broadly accepted clearinghouse for WiFi subscribers
so that each doesn't have to have a dozen memberships/accounts.
I was at iPass early on,
when the world was filled with thousands of small ISPs covering their own small
corners of the globe. Currently, iPass
aggregates and manages more than 20,000 dial-up POPs and 1000+ WiFi hotspots
from hundreds of providers. What we saw
early in the cycle was that almost all ISPs were marginal or unprofitable They drew from very small local markets (under 1000 users). Primarily, they existed because the owner wanted to be an ISP, not in order to make real
money. Most disappeared, were rolled
up, or become higher-level VARs/integrators/ASPs.
I believe local hotspot providers look similar: coffee shops and retail locations that can't earn significant profit from WiFi, but are
experimenting with it. Don't expect a
huge network to appear organically from atoms of goodwill.
Eventually the big slow carriers rolled out nation-sized services. I don't expect that any of
these are hugely profitable, but instead are viewed as a necessary part of a
full product offering.
IMO, the Joltages and Boingos of the world will be Chapter 11 footnotes. With so few paid WiFi
roamers or subscribers (note the distinction here versus "free"), early providers and aggregators will watch their capital leak away, and either exit or subsidize with other service revenue.
This year's big push toward cheap WiFi hardware will help, and some services may be viable next year. See my January screed on this WiFi, 3G and Ten Million Landlords. I sized the continental US in units of 802.11b coverage at 56,000 access points wide and 28,000 access points tall. (BTW , the newsletter is free.)
Another reason that micropayments have failed so abysmally is that low-priced information quickly becomes a "free hook" for someone offering an adjacent service.
Remember when we were going to pay for stock quotes? Then Schwab and the other discount brokers had to give away quotes in order to keep their trading revenue.
Wire service stories are given away by online newspapers to sell ads (so wire service subscriptions are devalued); movie showtimes and reviews support ticket sales; location-based services generate store coupons. ISP dial-up roaming agreements have been absorbed by iPass (http://www.ipass.com).
In general, there are no valuable services worth buying in micropayments that are not easily bundled into adjacent subscription services.
One exception is PayPal-style auction purchases, since they involve two unrelated individuals.
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Just published: "Open Innovation" by Hank Chesbrough, $24.50 on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578518377/ . .
It describes what PARC was looking for in its research, the many spin-offs that we've heard of, and proposes a post-PARC theory for tech R&D funding / thinking with research from Intel, IBM, Lucent and others. I've posted a full review at http://www.mironov.com/pb/mar03.html
Strongly recommended!
Paid-for WiFi hotspots are much too early in the market adoption curve to pay for themselves. We're missing two of the critical inputs: [1] masses of users willing to locate and pay for hotspots, and [2] a broadly accepted clearinghouse for WiFi subscribers so that each doesn't have to have a dozen memberships/accounts.
I was at iPass early on, when the world was filled with thousands of small ISPs covering their own small corners of the globe. Currently, iPass aggregates and manages more than 20,000 dial-up POPs and 1000+ WiFi hotspots from hundreds of providers. What we saw early in the cycle was that almost all ISPs were marginal or unprofitable They drew from very small local markets (under 1000 users). Primarily, they existed because the owner wanted to be an ISP, not in order to make real money. Most disappeared, were rolled up, or become higher-level VARs/integrators/ASPs.
I believe local hotspot providers look similar: coffee shops and retail locations that can't earn significant profit from WiFi, but are experimenting with it. Don't expect a huge network to appear organically from atoms of goodwill.
Eventually the big slow carriers rolled out nation-sized services. I don't expect that any of these are hugely profitable, but instead are viewed as a necessary part of a full product offering.
IMO, the Joltages and Boingos of the world will be Chapter 11 footnotes. With so few paid WiFi roamers or subscribers (note the distinction here versus "free"), early providers and aggregators will watch their capital leak away, and either exit or subsidize with other service revenue.
This year's big push toward cheap WiFi hardware will help, and some services may be viable next year. See my January screed on this WiFi, 3G and Ten Million Landlords. I sized the continental US in units of 802.11b coverage at 56,000 access points wide and 28,000 access points tall. (BTW , the newsletter is free.)
Another reason that micropayments have failed so abysmally is that low-priced information quickly becomes a "free hook" for someone offering an adjacent service.
Remember when we were going to pay for stock quotes? Then Schwab and the other discount brokers had to give away quotes in order to keep their trading revenue.
Wire service stories are given away by online newspapers to sell ads (so wire service subscriptions are devalued); movie showtimes and reviews support ticket sales; location-based services generate store coupons. ISP dial-up roaming agreements have been absorbed by iPass (http://www.ipass.com).
In general, there are no valuable services worth buying in micropayments that are not easily bundled into adjacent subscription services. One exception is PayPal-style auction purchases, since they involve two unrelated individuals.