Feedback please: Internet thinking vs. Telco thinking

Tags: Business,  Carriers,  Mobile applications,  Mobile web
May 18, 2009 by Barbara

I’m working out a hypothesis here, and would like some help. Does this distinction make sense to you? Would you add more to either list?

Internet thinking is characterized by companies like Yahoo, Skyfire, Opera, and Facebook, and ideas like

(Mobile) telco thinking is characterized by any mobile operator, companies like Microsoft, Nokia, and ideas like

You’ll notice I didn’t say that either side is smarter than the other. Both sides have strengths; both sides have blinders. And the blinders sure are interesting.

My thesis? You have to combine thinking from both to succeed in mobile. Google is kind-of there. Lots of startups start as Internet thinking but then get some Telco thinking smashed into their heads.

So, feedback please.


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3 Comments »

  1. You’ve described technologies and business models, but there’s also culture. Fast, iterative, tactical risk-takers vs long-term, considered, strategists.

    A colleague of mine used to talk about ‘web-heads’ and ‘bell-heads’. While no company is homogeneous of course, different sorts of people probably join each type of organisation.

    We all know what the difference is – and could even identify members of each tribe a mile off too ;-)

    But I agree: the most important thing is to understand the considerations of the other, or both, sides – whether you agree with them or not, and however frustrating it is.

    Comment by James Pearce — May 19, 2009 @ 5:26 am

  2. Internet:
    - open environment
    - as free as the Internet
    - smart and state of the art apps (Customers only decide if an apps is worth or not)

    Telcos:
    - walled garden
    - trying to charge the Customers for their cost uneffective solutions
    - old cost uneffective apps (and paranoic about control)
    do u think I am exagerating? try Vodafone Live! …

    Comment by alberto — May 19, 2009 @ 6:28 am

  3. Interesting. I probably would break it as this… there is Telco thinking, and there are the others. Telco thinking is as you said, very silo, and so on, and something I attribute why Nokia doesn’t “cross the line” as Apple and Google did — because of its Telco thinking. When I wrote this at ForumOxford, I called it “they don’t have the guts”, but you just made help me describe it better; it is the combination of “telco thinking” + “not having the guts to change such thinking”. I actually wrote a blog entry a few weeks ago which I haven’t published yet as it is evolving and will refer to this one and use “telco thinking” to better explain what I meant. Thanks.

    On the Internet thinking above, it is very (too much) Web-oriented, and I think it is more about “telco thinking” vs “not”. And local applications and web *services* are part of such Internet thinking as well IMHO.

    ceo

    Comment by C. Enrique Ortiz — May 19, 2009 @ 7:51 am

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