[media] Television Everywhere

Television Everywhere is on the way. It’s a generic term for using the internet to get TV to more devices in more places more conveniently – what you want, where you want it, when you want it.

It’s far from a new idea. But this time Hollywood’s content ownership combined with new, simple technologies could enable the television industry itself to take the lead and modernize television, while extending its economic life well into the future.

[web] new innovation models

Behind Google’s success are a new way of monetizing content, and a new way of developing web-based software.

‘Web 2.0’ may be a short-lived buzzword, but the technologies and development processes that accompany it are not.

[broadband] war of the worlds

Cable telephony… wireless video … iTunes® phones… broadband movies …Telco TV…Google’s ‘OpenOffice’... Broadband is about a lot more than connectivity.

War of the Worlds is a multi-industry contest in which telecom, media, consumer devices, and retailing will fight over broadband profits.

[media] digital economics are here

Media is experimenting with a long-awaited transformation of distribution and delivery economics:

• breaking release windows: compressing, or disappearing altogether
• cross-over: theatrical, game, internet categories are blurring
• bypass: new or à la carte offers bypassing tiered cable/DBS delivery model

In January 2006, HDNet Films and 2929 Entertainment, both Mark Cuban enterprises, will begin simultaneous first-run (digitally-projected) theatrical, DVD, and cable distribution of Steven Soderbergh-directed features.

[strategy] uncharted waters

The “value network” in media, internet infrastructure, and telecom services is undergoing major strategic change.

• industry boundaries: how will these industries collide or cooperate?
• potential outcomes: how broad is the range of possible endgames?
• business development: how do we implement partnerships in unfamiliar territories?
• economic assumptions: how do we challenge competitors with very different business models?

[scenario] broadband's possible futures

Scenarios set in year 2010 illustrate a wide range of ways in which a multi-industry collision over broadband’s spoils might play out.

Some scenarios exact a heavy price on telecom as it is outflanked by new, unfamiliar competitors. Others illustrate new opportunities, not just for telecom, but for adjacent industries as well.

[mobile] quality of growth

Mobile communications is often viewed as one of telecom’s few bright spots – providing the prospect of significant growth, even when near-term profitability is elusive.

Yet mobile’s increasing shift towards broadband brings with it new strategic issues which challenge both the level and quality of revenue growth.

[investor] eye on fundamentals

Our points of view frequently address business and industry fundamentals of concern to private and public investors:

• innovations: an incremental feature, or a sustainable business?
• legacy businesses: source of long-term cash flow or a “pre-distressed” asset?
• competitive strategies: which is a likely winner or loser, and why?
• industry economics: what are the actual drivers of performance?

[service_innovation] changing course

The “usual suspects” in the telecom bubble are regulation and excess capital, but we focus on a third, more important cause – flawed business models and strategies.

Telecom-based case studies help define a new model for potential services growth. This service marketpace model aims for not one or two “killer apps”, but hundreds of modest growth, revenue-generating services, both voice, internet, and hybrid combinations.

In this approach transport and services business models are separated and complementary, and capital efficiency is at a premium.