ABSTRACT
At this point you might be saying to yourself, “OK, these are interesting facts and figures, but why should I care? What does this mean for me?” Perhaps an easy way to illustrate some of the implications is to walk through three interrelated company case studies. 1 The first case begins with Motorola in the early 1990s. On the basis of key technology invented at Bell Labs along with its own key innovations, Motorola produced the very first commercial portable phone in 1983 after more than ten years and $100 million of investment. From that point on, Motorola was not only the leader in its home market for mobile phones (or what were called cell phones at the time), it was also the global leader and by 1991 had nearly a 40 percent global market share. Quite simply, Motorola’s mobile phones were the ones to own. However, in the early 1990s there were rumblings of a new technology and a new competitor. The new technology was digital signals versus Motorola’s analog technology and the new competitor was Nokia.
