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Chapter 5 Corporate Concomitant Coalitions (CONCOLs) to Reap Broadband Network Technology (BNT) Bounty

Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics

ISSN: 1355-5855

Article publication date: 1 January 1997

73

Abstract

US Vice President Albert Gore first used on March 21,1994, what later became the phrase: “Information Superhighway,” The phrase suggests that information traffic rolls right over the static, long‐suffering fixture of mud, concrete and asphalt. But with each new development of IT, it is as though the vehicles have to renegotiate with the roadway the right of passage, making it very much an interactive process. To underscore its dynamic nature, a transportation analogy seems appropriate. If we are today in the propeller airplane stage, Broadband Network Technology (BNT) is beyond Supersonic Concorde, to reach which we need to traverse through [1] turbo‐prop technology, [2] jet engine technology, [3] 747‐technology, [4]jumbo jet technology, and [5] supersonic technology to [6] supersonic+ technology. Information Superskyway should result in what Dertouzos, Director of MIT Computer Science Labatory, calls Information Marketplace: “the collection of people, computers, communications, software and services that will be engaged in the intraorganizational and interpersonal informational transactions of the future.” 3C firms jockey for position on the Information Superskyway. While they offer better access to the Internet, they also seek to restrict the access to products and services they control. Dertouzos says that all companies shoud cooperate with their competitors to build a shared information infrastructure, so that they can compete. It echoes our own definition of Concomitant Coalition: association of one party(ies) with and against the same party(ies) in the same game or activity. We discuss three CONCOLs: [1] Microsoft‐Netscape working together and in competition, as Bill Gates puts it, to define standards that will help overcome the Internet's limitations. They compete on supplying components of the software platform for interactive networks; but they cooperate in developing an industry standard, no matter whose components finally get accepted. [2] Sun‐NCR‐Intel working together against Microsoft which is pushing its Windows NT as a substitute for Sun's Unix operating system. [3] Intel‐SAP working together against Microsoft, IBM on business management software. Pandesic, the 50–50 joint venture between Intel (whose chips control the basic functions of 80 percent of the world's PCs), and Germany‐based SAP (the world's biggest publisher of business management software), will provide on‐line merchants the necessary hard‐and‐software, to tap into the projected US$234 billion economy on the Internet by the year 2002. We saw in Chapter 4 that the main players in 3C industries are racing each other on their own pathways to the Information Superskyway. In this chapter we find 3C firms entering into CONCOLs to tap into the rich bounty on the Internet. However, Dertouzos warns that none of the awesome powers of fiber optics, real‐time video, virtual reality, multimedia, and electronic commerce would be realized unless computers and software at diverse sites can “understand” one another. But he says: “Hardly anyone today is paying attention to shared conventions that will allow interconnected machines to understand and work with each other without the constant intervention of a human being.”

Citation

(1997), "Chapter 5 Corporate Concomitant Coalitions (CONCOLs) to Reap Broadband Network Technology (BNT) Bounty", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 9 No. 1/2, pp. 72-84. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb010282

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1997, MCB UP Limited

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